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ENGLISH   6MEN   OF  LETTERS 
<ADAM   SMITH 


ENGLISH   JMEN    OF  LETTERS 


ADAM    SMITH 


BY 


FRANCIS  W.   HIRST 


LONDON:    MACMILLAN    &    CO.,    LIMITED 
NINETEEN      HUNDRED      AND      FOUR 


Copyright  in  the  United  States  of  America,  1904 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

Early  in  1793  Dugald  Stewart  read  at  two  meetings 
of  the  Royal  Society  of  Edinburgh  his  "Account 
of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  Adam  Smith."  Written 
with  the  sympathetic  pen  of  a  friend  and  disciple  in  the 
Corinthian  style  that  Stewart  loved,  the  memoir  was 
too  good  to  be  superseded.  A  century  passed,  and 
in  1895  appeared  Mr.  John  Rae's  exhaustive  Life  of 
Adam  Smith.  Mr.  Rae's  comprehensive  researches 
cropped  the  ground  so  close  that  little  seemed  to 
have  been  left  for  his  successors  to  glean.  But  the 
discovery  of  Smith's  Lectures  on  Justice,  Police,  Revenue, 
and  Arms,  edited  by  Mr.  Edwin  Cannan  and  published 
in  1896,  has  furnished  new  and  important  materials. 

Of  Smith's  innumerable  critics  and  commentators, 
Bagehot,  Oncken,  Ingram,  and  Hasbach  seem  to  me  to 
have  understood  him  best.  The  misdirected  erudition 
of  some  others  has  only  proved  the  importance  of 
allowing  him  to  be  his  own  interpreter. 

Dr.  David  Murray  of  Glasgow  has  very  kindly  read 
portions  of  my  proofs,  and  has  contributed  most 
generously  from  his  wonderful  store  of  learning. 

F.  W.  H. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER    I 

PAGE 

Early  Years 1 


CHAPTER    II 
The  Beginning  of  a  Career 23 

CHAPTER    III 
Theology  and  Religious  Establishments    ...      36 

CHAPTER    IV 
"The  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments"         ...      46 

CHAPTER    V 

In  the   Glasgow  Chair— The  Lectures  on  Justice 

and  Police 68 

CHAPTER   VI 
Glasgow  and  its  University 94 

CHAPTER    VII 

The  Tour  in  France,  1764-66 118 

yii 


viii  ADAM  SMITH 

CHAPTER   VIII 

PA.QB 

Politics  and  Study,  1766-76 144 

CHAPTER   IX 
The  "Wealth  op  Nations"  and  its  Critics       .        .     164 

CHAPTER   X 
Free  Trade 188 

CHAPTER    XI 
Last  Years ,  205 

Index 237 


3tt 


ADAM    SMITH 

CHAPTER  I 

EARLY  YEARS 

Adam  Smith  was  born  on  June  5,  1723,  in  the  "lang 
toun  "  of  Kirkcaldy.  It  was  one  of  the  "  mony  royal 
boroughs  yoked  on  end  to  end  like  ropes  of  ingans, 
with  their  hie-streets  and  their  booths,  and  their 
kraemes  and  houses  of  stane  and  lime  and  forestairs," 
which  led  Andrew  Fairser vice  to  contrast  "the  king- 
dom of  Fife  "  with  the  inferior  county  of  Northumber- 
land; nay,  it  furnished  him  with  a  special  boast, 
"  Kirkcaldy,  the  sell  o't,  is  langer  than  ony  toun  in 
England."  It  had  been  a  royal  borough  from  the 
time  of  Charles  I.,  and  had  declined,  like  many  other 
Scotch  towns,  in  the  religious  wars  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Many  of  its  citizens  who  had  fought  for  the 
Covenant  had  fallen  on  the  fatal  field  of  Tippermuir. 
But  it  still  contained  about  1500  inhabitants,  who 
were  variously  employed  as  colliers,  fishermen,  salters, 
nailmakers,  and  smugglers.  From  the  harbour  you 
might  walk  a  mile  or  more  westward  along  the  High 
Street,  enjoying  from  time  to  time  a  glimpse  of  the 
sea  and  shelving  beach,  where  the  line  of  shops  opened 
for  a   narrow  "wynd,"  or  a  still   narrower  "close" 

A 


2  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

threaded  the  high-walled  gardens  of  a  few  substantial 
houses.  In  one  of  these  Adam  Smith  wrote  the 
Wealth  of  Nations,  and  probably  in  one  of  these  he 
was  born.  The  father,  who  died  a  few  weeks  before 
the  birth  of  his  only  child,  had  been  a  leading  towns- 
man. Adam  Smith  the  elder  was  a  man  of  note  in  his 
own  day.  From  1707  to  his  death  he  was  a  Writer,1 
i.e.  solicitor,  and  Judge  Advocate  for  Scotland.  He 
had  acted  as  private  secretary  to  Lord  Loudon,  then 
Minister  for  Scotland;  and  Loudon,  on  leaving  office 
in  1713,  obtained  for  his  secretary  the  Comptroller- 
ship  of  Customs  at  Kirkcaldy — a  post  worth  about 
£100  a  year. 

His  widow  lived  to  a  great  age,  and  saw  her 
boy  rise  step  by  step  to  the  fulness  of  fame.  She 
is  said  to  have  been  an  over-indulgent  mother;  but 
her  devotion  was  repaid  by  the  life-long  love  of  a  most 
tender  son.  Mrs.  Smith's  maiden  name  was  Margaret 
Douglas,  and  she  was  the  daughter  of  the  Laird  of 
Strathendry,  in  the  county  of  Fife.  At  Strathendry 
the  future  economist  had  a  narrow  escape;  for  one 
day  as  he  played  at  the  door  he  was  picked  up  and 
carried  off  by  a  party  of  vagrant  tinkers.  Luckily  he 
was  soon  missed,  pursued  and  overtaken  in  Leslie 
Wood;  and  thus,  in  the  grandiose  dialect  of  Dugald 
Stewart,  there  was  preserved  to  the  world  "a  genius, 
which  was  destined,  not  only  to  extend  the  boundaries 
of  science,  but  to  enlighten  and  reform  the  commercial 
policy  of  Europe." 

The  next  landmark  in  the  boy's  history  is  a  copy 
of  Eutropiiis,   on   the    fly-leaf  of   which   is   inscribed 

1  Dugald  Stewart  wrongly  describes  him  as  a  Writer  to  the 
Signet,  confusing  him  with  a  contemporary  of  the  same  name. 


i.]  EARLY  YEARS  3 

in  a  childish  hand,  "Adam  Smith,  his  book,  May 
4th,  1733."  Before  his  tenth  birthday,  therefore, 
he  had  already  made  some  progress  in  Latin.  The 
Burgh  School  of  Kirkcaldy,  which  he  attended,  was  a 
good  grammar  school  of  the  kind  that  already 
abounded  in  Scotland.  It  was  patronised  by  the 
Oswalds  of  Dunnikier,  the  principal  people  of  the 
neighbourhood.  James  Oswald,  who  soon  made  a 
mark  in  politics,  was  Smith's  senior  by  some  years, 
but  they  became  life-long  friends.  Robert  Adams, 
the  architect  who  planned  Edinburgh  University,  was 
another  friend  and  schoolfellow;  and  so  was  John 
Drysdale,  who  twice  held  the  helm  of  the  Scotch 
Church  as  Moderator  of  its  General  Assembly.  In 
1734  the  schoolboys  played  a  moral  piece  written  for 
the  purpose  by  the  head  master,  David  Millar.  As  a 
teacher  he  had  a  considerable  reputation,  but  as  a 
dramatist  he  will  be  judged  by  the  title  of  his  play, 
"  A  Royal  Counsel  for  Advice ;  or  Regular  Education 
for  Boys  the  Foundation  of  all  other  Improvements." 
Adam  Smith  soon  attracted  notice  at  school  "  by  his 
passion  for  books  and  by  the  extraordinary  powers  of 
his  memory."  Too  weak  and  delicate  to  join  in  active 
games,  he  was  yet  popular  with  his  schoolfellows ;  for 
his  temper,  "though  warm,  was  to  an  uncommon 
degree  friendly  and  generous."  In  company  his  absent- 
mindedness  was  often  noticed,  and  this  habit,  with  a 
trick  of  talking  to  himself,  clung  to  him  to  the  end. 

In  his  fourteenth  year  Smith  left  the  Grammar 
School  of  Kirkcaldy  for  the  University  of  Glasgow, 
where  he  was  to  remain  until  the  spring  of  1740.  He 
entered,  probably,  in  October  1737,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  session.     As  the  full  course  extended  over  four 


4  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

sessions  and  Smith  only  attended  three,  he  did  not 
take  his  degree ;  but  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  study 
Greek  under  Dunlop,  mathematics  under  Simson,  the 
editor  of  Euclid,  and  morals  under  Hutcheson,  per- 
haps the  greatest  philosopher  of  his  generation,  and 
certainly  the  most  eloquent. 

Glasgow,  though  still  but  a  small  place,  was  already 
the  most  prosperous  and  progressive  of  Scotch  towns. 
After  a  century  of  decay  it  had  found  salvation  in  the 
Act  of  Union,  which  gave  it  free  trade  with  England  and 
a  share  in  the  colonial  monopoly.  Readers  of  Rob  Roy 
will  remember  how  the  inimitable  Jarvie  enlarged 
upon  these  advantages  and  on  the  facilities  Glasgow  pos- 
sessed "  of  making  up  sortable  cargoes  for  the  American 
market."  It  was  very  loyal,  therefore,  to  the  House 
of  Hanover.  In  the  rising  of  1745,  Charles  Edward 
got  considerable  support  from  Edinburgh,  and  even 
from  Manchester,  but  none  from  Glasgow,  which,  in- 
deed, soon  afterwards  obtained  a  parliamentary  vote  of 
£10,000  in  recognition  of  its  exertions  and  as  com- 
pensation for  its  losses.  Glasgow  was  the  only  town 
in  Scotland,  as  a  learned  writer  has  observed,  to  exhibit 
the  same  kind  of  visible  progress  in  the  first  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century  which  the  rest  of  the  country 
developed  in  the  second.  Its  shipping,  sadly  cramped 
by  the  Navigation  Act,  began  to  expand  after  the 
Union.  In  1716  the  "first  honest  vessel  in  the  West 
India  trade"  sailed  from  the  Clyde,  and  in  1735, 
two  years  before  Smith's  arrival,  Glasgow  owned  sixty- 
seven  vessels  with  a  total  burden  of  5600  tons,  nearly 
half  of  the  total  Scotch,  though  only  one-eightieth  of 
the  total  English  tonnage. 

In  this  rising  mart  Smith   learned   to  value    the 


i.]  EARLY  YEARS  5 

English  connection,  and  as  he  trod  its  busy  streets 
and  watched  the  merchandise  of  the  West  pouring 
into  its  warehouses,  the  boy  saw  that  a  new  world 
had  been  called  in  to  enrich  the  old.  With  the  new 
sights  and  sounds  came  new  ideas  that  had  not  yet 
penetrated  the  gloom  of  Holyrood  or  the  rusty  pride 
of  the  Canongate.  From  the  lips  of  his  master, 
Hutcheson,  he  heard  that  fruitful  formula  which  his 
own  philosophy  was  to  interpret  and  develop,  "  the 
greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number."  His  mind 
was  opened  at  once  to  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients  and 
to  the  discoveries  of  the  moderns.  He  learned  from 
Bacon,  and  Grotius,  and  Locke,  and  Newton  to  discern 
through  the  obscuring  mists  of  mediaeval  philosophy  the 
splendid  dawn  of  science.  To  the  end  of  his  life  he 
loved  to  recall  "the  abilities  and  virtues  of  the  never- 
to-be-forgotten  Dr.  Hutcheson."  Unorthodox  yet  not 
irreligious,  radical  yet  not  revolutionary,  receptive 
yet  inspiring,  erudite  yet  original,  Hutcheson  was  one 
of  those  rare  reformers  whose  zeal  is  fertilised  by 
knowledge  and  enforced  by  practical  devotion.  In 
early  manhood  he  had  refused  to  seek  an  easy  advance- 
ment by  subscribing  to  the  tenets  of  the  Church  of 
England  in  Ireland,  and  while  Smith  was  at  Glasgow 
he  braved  the  resentment  of  the  Presbytery  by 
teaching  moral  principles  which  were  supposed  to  con- 
travene the  Westminster  Confession.  He  was  also  the 
first  in  the  University  to  abandon  the  practice  of 
lecturing  in  Latin ;  and  Dugald  Stewart  tells  us  that 
his  old  pupils  were  all  agreed  about  his  extraordinary 
talent  as  a  public  speaker.  His  pen  was  so  unequal 
to  his  tongue  that  Stewart  applies  to  Hutcheson  what 
Quintilian    said   of    Hortensius :    "apparet    placuisse 


6  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

aliquid  eo  dicente  quod  legentes  non  invenimus." — 
"  He  gave  a  pleasure  to  his  hearers  which  his  readers 
miss." 

Hutcheson's  work  in  Glasgow  (1730-1746)  was  of 
the  utmost  importance  to  Scotland.  "I  am  called 
the  New  Light  here,"  he  said.  He  stood  for  reform 
of  the  universities,  for  the  criticism  of  abuses  and 
privileges,  for  free  thought,  free  speech,  and  the 
spirit  of  inquiry.  He  took  a  lively  interest  in  his 
pupils,  and  tried  to  keep  them  abreast  of  the  times. 
He  set  Adam  Smith  to  write  an  analysis  of  Hume's 
Treatise  of  Human  Nature  as  soon  as  it  appeared,  and 
the  lad  of  seventeen  did  his  exercise  so  well  that 
Hume  got  it  printed  in  London  and  had  a  copy  of  the 
Treatise  sent  him  by  way  of  reward.  Hutcheson  has 
been  called  an  eclectic.  Certainly  he  had  read  widely 
and  thought  deeply  upon  the  difficulties  and  perplex- 
ities of  a  new  age,  an  age  of  scientific  discovery  and 
philosophic  doubt,  an  age  tired  of  the  syllogism,  dis- 
dainful of  divine  right,  eager  to  find  natural  principles 
of  morality,  law,  and  government.  From  the  System  of 
Moral  Philosophy,  published  after  his  death,  we  get  a 
clear  notion  of  the  range  of  his  lectures.  He  con- 
sidered man  as  a  social  animal,  and  accordingly  refused 
to  divorce  the  science  of  individual  ethics  from  the 
science  of  politics.  He  followed  Aristotle  in  including 
chapters  on  jurisprudence  and  economics  in  his  scheme 
of  moral  philosophy.  It  has  been  well  said  that  the 
same  natural  liberty  and  optimism  which  served  Smith 
as  assumptions  were  the  theses  of  Hutcheson,  who  him- 
self learned  much  from  Shaftesbury.  Hutcheson  and 
Smith  were  both  reformers,  and  were  more  hopeful,  if 
less  cheerful,  than  Hume.     Hume  was  a  genial  cynic 


i.]  EARLY  YEARS  7 

without  any  zeal  for  reform,  who  found  repose  in 
Butler's  doctrine  that  things  are  what  they  are,  and 
that  their  consequences  will  be  what  they  will  be. 

But  with  Hutcheson  and  Smith  it  was  a  real  religion 
to  see  that  society  should  be  better  governed;  they 
made  it  the  supreme  object  of  their  lives  to  increase 
the  happiness  of  mankind  by  diffusing  useful  truths 
and  exposing  mischievous  errors.  In  the  scope 
of  his  philosophy,  in  temper  and  practical  aim,  Smith 
may  be  called  the  spiritual  descendant  of  Hutcheson. 
There  are  also  marked  resemblances  in  their  subject 
matter  and  even  in  some  minor  points  of  doctrine,  as 
a  careful  comparison  recently  instituted  by  a  very  com- 
petent writer  abundantly  shows.1  "We  find  Smith 
using  the  same  authorities  as  his  predecessor  and 
quoting  them  to  much  the  same  purpose.  Even 
Hutcheson's  crude  and  fragmentary  economics  offered 
many  suggestions  that  were  afterwards  developed 
and  harmonised  by  Smith  in  his  lectures.  The  Sun- 
day lectures  on  Natural  Theology,  by  which  Hutcheson 
sought  to  reduce  the  intolerance  and  soften  the  harsh- 
ness of  Scottish  orthodoxy,  made  a  lasting  impression 
upon  the  mind  of  his  great  pupil. 

Besides  his  work  with  Hutcheson,  Smith  laid  at 
Glasgow  the  foundation  of  an  early  mastery  of  the 
classics,  and  prepared  himself  for  a  wide  course  of 
reading  in  the  literature  and  wisdom  of  the  ancients. 
But  mathematics  and  natural  philosophy  are  said  to 
have  been  his  favourite  pursuits  at  this  time — indeed 
he  seems  to  have  attained  in  both  a  considerable  pro- 
ficiency, which  never  escaped  the  tenacious  grip  of  his 
memory.  Matthew  Stewart,  Dugald's  father,  was  one 
1  See  W.  R.  Scott's  Hutcheson  (1900). 


8  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

of  his  fellow-students.  Long  afterwards,  when  Pro- 
fessor of  Mathematics  in  Edinburgh,  he  was  heard 
discussing  with  Smith  "  a  geometrical  problem  of 
considerable  difficulty,"  which  had  been  set  them  as 
an  exercise  by  Simson.  Matthew  Stewart,  who  died 
in  1785,  is  commemorated  with  Simson  in  the  sixth 
edition  of  Smith's  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments,  published 
fifty  years  after  this  time.  After  observing  that 
"  mathematicians  who  may  have  the  most  perfect  as- 
surance of  the  truth  and  of  the  importance  of  their 
discoveries,  are  frequently  very  indifferent  about  the 
reception  which  they  may  meet  with  from  the  public," 
Adam  Smith  cites  Dr.  Robert  Simson  of  Glasgow,  and 
Dr.  Matthew  Stewart  of  Edinburgh,  "  the  two  greatest 
mathematicians  that  I  ever  had  the  honour  to  be  known 
to,  and  I  believe,  the  two  greatest  that  have  lived  in 
my  time,"  as  men  who  never  seemed  to  feel  the  slightest 
uneasiness  from  the  neglect  with  which  some  of  their 
most  valuable  works  were  received.  For  several  years, 
he  adds,  even  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  Principia  fell  flat, 
but  his  tranquillity  did  not  suffer  for  a  single  quarter 
of  an  hour.  Newton  always  stood  at  the  very  top  of 
Smith's  calendar. 

Smith  left  Glasgow  at  the  early  age  of  seventeen. 
His  mother,  acting  on  the  advice  of  her  relatives, 
had  destined  the  boy  for  the  Church  of  England, 
which  then  opened  the  door  to  so  many  lucrative 
positions.  Perhaps  they  hoped  from  his  talents  for  a 
career  like  that  of  his  famous  countryman,  Bishop 
Burnet,  who  indeed  had  himself  been  a  Professor  of 
Divinity  at  Glasgow.  The  intention  went  so  far  that 
in  his  third  year  Smith  sought  and  obtained  one  of 
those   exhibitions    which    have    taken    so    many  dis- 


i.]  EARLY  YEARS  9 

tinguished  Scots  from  the  University  of  Glasgow  to 
Balliol  College,  Oxford.  The  Snell  Exhibitions,  as  they 
are  called,  were  founded  by  an  old  Glasgow  student  of 
that  name  in  1679,  with  a  view  to  educating  Scots  for 
the  service  of  the  Episcopalian  Church.  It  chanced, 
however,  that  during  his  residence  at  Oxford,  an 
application  made  by  the  Oxford  authorities  to  compel 
the  Snell  Exhibitioners  "  to  submit  and  conform  to  the 
doctrines  of  the  Church  of  England  and  to  enter  into 
holy  orders "  was  refused  by  the  Court  of  Chancery ; 
so  that  when  the  time  came  Smith  was  able  to  choose 
his  own  career  and  to  strike  off  from  the  easier  road 
which  took  his  Fifeshire  friend  Douglas  in  due  time  to 
a  bishopric.  The  change  from  Glasgow  to  Oxford  was 
immense.  It  was  more  than  exile ;  it  was  transmigra- 
tion from  a  living  to  a  dead  society,  from  the  thrill  of 
a  rising  and  thriving  community,  where  men  lived  and 
moved  and  thought,  to  a  city  of  dreaming  spires  and 
droning  dons.  In  June  1740  he  rode  on  horseback  to 
Oxford  and  matriculated  on  the  17th  of  July,  entering 
himself  in  a  round  schoolboy  hand  as  "  Adamus  Smith, 
e  Coll.  Ball.  Gen.  Fil.  Jul.  7mo.  1740." 

It  will  be  remembered  that  when  Captain  Waverley 
crossed  the  border,  five  years  later,  on  his  way  to  join 
the  Young  Pretender,  the  houses  of  Tully  Veolan 
seemed  miserable  in  the  extreme,  "  especially  to  an  eye 
accustomed  to  the  smiling  neatness  of  English  cottages." 
Smith  rode  through  Carlisle,  and  he  told  Samuel 
Rogers  in  1789  that  he  recollected  being  much  struck 
as  he  approached  that  town  by  the  richness  of  England 
and  by  the  superiority  of  English  agriculture.  England 
indeed  was  then  remarkably  prosperous,  thanks  to  a 
long  peace,  low  taxes,  and  good  harvests.     Food  was 


10  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

generally  cheap  and  plentiful.  Trade  was  good ;  and 
better  means  of  transit  by  road  and  canal  were  being 
developed.  But  the  land  of  the  Scots,  "  during  fifty 
generations  the  rudest  perhaps  of  all  European  nations, 
the  most  necessitous,  the  most  turbulent,  and  the  most 
unsettled,"  was  still  unimproved.  The  roads  were 
almost  impassable  for  wheeled  vehicles.  Coaches 
were  unknown.1  Many  of  the  most  fertile  tracts 
were  waste,  and  there  is  respectable  authority  for 
the  opinion  that  some  parts  of  the  Lowlands  were 
worse  cultivated  than  in  the  thirteenth  century. 
Under  such  conditions,  rude  beyond  conception, 
poverty  was  universal.  Even  the  gentry  could  seldom 
afford  such  bare  comforts  as  half  a  century  later  their 
own  farmers  possessed.  As  for  the  common  people, 
clothed  in  the  coarsest  garb  and  starving  on  the 
meanest  fare,  they  dwelt  in  despicable  huts  with  their 
cattle.  It  is  significant  that  in  those  days  Scotland 
had  no  fatted  kine.  There  was  no  market  for  good 
meat,  and  the  taste  only  grew  with  the  means  for 
gratifying  it.  Adam  Smith  was  fond  of  telling  at  his 
own  table  in  after  years,  how  on  the  first  day  he  dined 
in  the  hall  of  Balliol,  having  fallen  into  one  of  his  fits 
of  absent-mindedness,  he  was  roused  by  the  servitor 
who  told  him  to  "fall  to,  for  he  had  never  seen  such  a 
piece  of  beef  in  Scotland." 

Of  the  hundred  undergraduates  then  at  Balliol  about 
eight  came  from  Scotland,  and  four  of  these  were  Snell 
Exhibitioners.      Their    peculiarities    of    manner    and 

1  Even  in  1763  there  was  but  one  stage-coach  in  Scotland 
"  which  set  out  [from  Edinburgh]  once  a  month  for  London, 
and  was  from  twelve  to  fourteen  days  on  the  journey." — 
George  Robertson's  Rural  Recollections,  p.  4. 


i.]  EARLY  YEARS  11 

dialect  marked  them  off  from  the  rest  of  the  college, 
and  they  were  treated  as  foreigners.  Their  relations 
with  the  authorities  were  unpleasant.  In  1744,  Smith 
and  the  other  Exhibitioners  stated  their  grievances  to 
the  Senate  of  Glasgow  University,  and  explained  how 
their  residence  might  be  made  "  more  easy  and  com- 
modious." A  few  years  afterwards,  one  of  them  told 
the  Master  that  what  the  Exhibitioners  wanted  was  to 
be  transferred  to  some  other  college  on  account  of 
their  "  total  dislike  of  Balliol."  The  friction  between 
Balliol  and  Glasgow  lasted  long,  and  it  was  no  doubt 
his  own  unsatisfactory  experience  that  drew  from 
Adam  Smith  thirty  years  afterwards  a  strong  condem- 
nation of  close  scholarships.1 

The  University  of  Oxford  was  at  that  time  and  for 
the  rest  of  the  century  sunk  deep  in  intellectual  apathy, 
a  muddy  reservoir  of  sloth,  ignorance,  and  luxury  from 
which  men  sank  as  by  a  law  of  gravitation  into  the 
still  lower  level  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  sinecures. 
In  the  colleges  there  were  only  degrees  of  badness; 
but  the  charity  of  Snell  had  been  rather  unkind  to 
Smith,  for  Balliol  being  Jacobite  was  particularly 
rowdy  and  intolerant.  It  has  been  mentioned  that  in 
his  last  year  at  Glasgow,  Smith  wrote  for  Hutcheson 
an  abstract  of  David  Hume's  Treatise  of  Human  Nature 
which  brought  him  a  presentation  copy  from  the 
author.  This  copy  he  seems  to  have  carried  south 
with  him;  for  the  Balliol  authorities,  it  is  recorded, 
caught  Smith  in  the  act  of  reading  the  godless  work, 
censured  him  severely,  and  confiscated  a  book  which 
more  than  a  century  afterwards  was  to  be  sumptuously 
edited  by  two  honoured  alumni  of  the  same  college. 
1  See  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  Book  v.  ch.  i.  art.  2. 


12  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

The  narrow  spirit  which  this  incident  illustrates 
seems  to  have  made  a  painful  impression  upon  the 
student's  memory.  In  the  Wealth  of  Nations  he  com- 
plains bitterly  of  the  compulsory  "sham-lecture,"  and 
visits  with  severe  censure  the  casuistry  and  sophistry 
by  which  the  ancient  course  of  philosophy  had  been 
corrupted.  This  completed  course,  he  says,  was  meant 
to  train  ecclesiastics,  and  "  certainly  did  not  render  it 
more  proper  for  the  education  of  gentlemen  or  men  of 
the  world,  or  more  likely  either  to  improve  the  under- 
standing or  to  mend  the  heart."  At  Oxford  "the 
greater  part  of  the  public  professors  have  for  many  years 
given  up  altogether  even  the  pretence  of  teaching." 
College  discipline  was  in  general  contrived  "  not  for  the 
benefit  of  the  students,  but  for  the  interests,  or  more 
properly  speaking,  for  the  ease  of  the  masters." 

In  England  the  public  schools  were  "much  less 
corrupted  than  the  universities ;  for  in  the  schools  a 
boy  was  taught,  or  at  least  might  be  taught  Greek 
and  Latin,"  whereas  "in  the  universities  the  youth 
neither  are  taught,  nor  always  can  find  any  proper 
means  of  being  taught,  the  sciences  which  it  is 
the  business  of  those  incorporated  bodies  to  teach." 
It  is  only  fair  to  add  that  Gibbon's  experiences  of 
Magdalen,  Bishop  Butler's  of  Christ  Church,  and 
Bentham's  of  Queen's,  were  equally  adverse.  And 
Balliol  could  at  least  offer  its  undergraduates  the 
advantage  of  an  excellent  library.  When  such  a  cloud 
lay  heavy  upon  that  ancient  seat  of  learning,  it  is  no 
wonder  if  Smith  with  his  sedentary  disposition  and 
frugal  habits — he  probably  lived  on  his  exhibition  of 
£10 — should  have  spent  his  six  years  at  Balliol  in  the 
society  of  its  books  rather  than  of  its  tipsy  under- 


I.]  EARLY  YEARS  13 

graduates.  Oxford,  it  has  been  observed  by  the  most 
diligent  of  his  biographers,  is  the  only  place  he  lived 
in  which  failed  to  furnish  him  with  friends.  But  he 
never  displayed  towards  it  the  lively  antipathy  of 
Gibbon;  far  from  regretting  his  residence  there,  he 
mentioned  it  with  gratitude  many  years  afterwards. 
In  Oxford  he  certainly  gained  the  liberal  knowledge 
of  ancient  and  modern  literature  that  enriches  and 
adorns  all  his  writings.  The  bookshops  must  have 
introduced  him  to  his  favourite  Pope,  to  Swift  and 
Addison,  and  the  fashionable  writers  of  the  day.  He 
employed  himself  frequently,  he  used  to  say,  in  the 
practice  of  translations,  especially  of  French  authors, 
in  order  to  improve  his  style. 

"How  intimately,"  writes  Dugald  Stewart,  "he 
had  once  been  conversant  with  more  ornamental 
branches  of  learning,  in  particular  with  the  works  of 
the  Eoman,  Greek,  French,  and  Italian  poets,  appeared 
sufficiently  from  the  hold  they  kept  of  his  memory 
after  all  the  different  occupations  and  inquiries  in 
which  his  maturer  faculties  had  been  employed."  He 
had  an  extraordinary  knowledge  of  English  poetry, 
and  could  quote  from  memory  with  a  correctness 
which,  says  the  same  grave  Scot,  "appeared  surprising 
even  to  those  whose  attention  had  never  been  directed 
to  more  important  acquisitions."  What  little  intel- 
lectual activity  outside  politics  still  lingered  on  at 
Oxford  was  probably  connected  with  philological 
speculations  such  as  those  of  James  Harris,  the  learned, 
if  somewhat  priggish,  author  of  Hermes.  At  any  rate, 
Smith  went  deeply  into  every  branch  of  grammar. 
Andrew  Dalzel,  who  was  Professor  of  Greek  at  Edin- 
burgh in  Adam  Smith's  old  age,  often  remarked  on 


14  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

"the  uncommon  degree  in  which  Mr.  Smith  retained 
possession  even  to  the  close  of  his  life  of  different 
branches  of  knowledge  which  he  had  long  ceased  to 
cultivate,"  and  particularly  mentioned  to  his  colleague 
Dugald  Stewart,  "the  readiness  and  correctness"  of 
his  memory  on  philological  subjects  and  his  acuteness 
in  discussing  the  minutice  of  Greek  grammar. 

Dugald  Stewart  failed  to  collect  any  information 
about  Smith's  Oxford  days,  but  a  few  relics  have  been 
preserved  by  Lord  Brougham  in  the  appendix  to  the 
discursive  and  rather  disappointing  essay  upon  Adam 
Smith  that  appears  in  his  Lives  of  tlie  Philosophers. 
"I  have  now  before  me,"  says  Brougham,  "a  number 
of  Dr.  Smith's  letters  written  when  at  Oxford  between 
the  years  1740  and  1746  to  his  mother:  they  are 
almost  all  upon  mere  family  and  personal  matters; 
most  of  them  indeed  upon  his  linen  and  other  such 
necessaries,  but  all  show  his  strong  affection  for  his 
parent."  The  few  quotations  Brougham  gives  are 
barely  worth  recording.  On  November  29,  1743, 
Adam  Smith  writes :  "I  am  just  recovered  of  a  violent 
fit  of  laziness,  which  has  confined  me  to  my  elbow 
chair  these  three  months."  Again  on  July  2,  1744 : 
"  I  am  quite  inexcusable  for  not  writing  to  you  of tener. 
I  think  of  you  every  day,  but  always  defer  writing 
till  the  post  is  just  going,  and  then  sometimes  business 
or  company,  but  of  tener  laziness,  hinders  me."  He 
speaks  of  "an  inveterate  scurvy  and  shaking  of  the 
head "  which  have  been  perfectly  cured  by  tar 
water,  "a  remedy  very  much  in  vogue  here  for  all 
diseases." 

His  college  contemporaries,  says  Mr.  Rae,  "were  a 
singularly  undistinguished  body,"  with  the  exception 


I.]  EARLY  YEARS  15 

of  a  Fifeshire  man,  John  Douglas,  who  had  gone 
direct  to  Oxford  from  the  Grammar  School  at  Dunbar. 
Douglas  at  first  had  a  small  exhibition  at  St.  Mary's 
Hall,  but  after  fighting  at  Fontenoy,  he  obtained  a 
Snell  Exhibition.  He  distinguished  himself  later  as  a 
pamphleteer  and  was  rewarded  with  the  Bishopric  of 
Salisbury.  With  this  exception,  Adam  Smith  seems 
to  have  made  no  friends  at  Oxford.  Besides  his  books 
he  must  have  enjoyed  from  time  to  time  walks  and 
excursions  into  the  surrounding  country.  In  the  Wealth 
of  Nations  he  was  able  to  make  close  comparisons  of 
the  condition  of  the  labouring  classes  in  England 
and  Scotland,  and  there  is  a  passage,  about  the  use  of 
coal  and  wood  by  the  common  people  in  Oxfordshire, 
to  show  that  he  had  certainly  acquired  as  an  under- 
graduate the  faculty  of  minute  and  picturesque  ob- 
servation which  he  afterwards  turned  to  such  account.1 
What  Smith  did  in  the  vacations  we  do  not  know. 
He  could  not  have  had  much  money  to  spare,  and 
there  is  no  indication  that  he  ever  returned  home  or 
even  visited  London. 

At  last,  in  August  1746,  after  taking  his  degree  as 
a  Bachelor  of  Arts,  he  retraced  his  steps  to  Scotland, 
and  gave  up  all  thought  of  a  clerical  career.  In  the 
words  of  his  biographer,  "  he  chose  to  consult  in  this 
instance  his  own  inclinations  in  preference  to  the 
wishes  of  his  friends ;  and  abandoning  at  once  all  the 
schemes  which  their  prudence  had  formed  for  him,  he 
resolved  to  return  to  his  own  country  and  to  limit  his 
ambition  to  the  uncertain  prospect  of  obtaining,  in 
time,  some  one  of  those  moderate  preferments  to 
which  literary  attainments  lead  in  Scotland." 
1  See  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  Book  I.  chap.  ii. 


16  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

He  was  now  in  1746  again  in  his  mother's  house  at 
Kirkcaldy,  "  engaged  in  study,  but  without  any  fixed 
plan  for  his  future  life."  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  none 
of  Adam  Smith's  biographers  has  definitely  assigned 
to  this  period  any  of  the  writings  which  he  either 
published  or  left  to  his  executors.  In  the  latter  class, 
however,  there  is  a  group  of  fragments  dealing  with 
the  history  of  Astronomy,  of  Ancient  Physics,  and  of 
Ancient  Logic  and  Metaphysics,  and  an  elaborate  essay 
on  The  Imitative  Arts,  which  are  collectively  described 
by  his  executors  in  an  advertisement  as  "parts  of  a 
plan  he  once  had  formed  for  giving  a  connected  history 
of  the  liberal  sciences  and  elegant  arts." 1 

The  essay  on  The  Imitative  Arts  belongs  to  a  different 
design  and  to  a  slightly  later  period.  But  it  seems 
clear  that  the  History  of  Astronomy  was  composed  at 
this  time.2  There  is  no  other  period  of  his  life  in 
which  he  would  have  been  so  well  able  to  collect  the 
materials  for  an  examination  of  the  systems  of  the 
Greek,  the  Arabian,  and  the  mediaeval  astronomers  as 
in  the  six  years  of  Oxford  study,  or  so  likely  to  shape 

1  The  advertisement  goes  on  to  say :  "  It  is  long  since  he 
found  it  necessary  to  abandon  that  plan  as  far  too  extensive  ; 
and  these  parts  of  it  lay  beside  him  neglected  till  he  was  dead. " 

2  First,  Dugald  Stewart  declares  that  the  History  of  Astro- 
nomy "was  one  of  Mr.  Smith's  earliest  compositions."  Second, 
in  a  letter  constituting  Hume  his  literary  executor,  Smith 
describes  it  as  a  fragment  of  an  intended  juvenile  work. 
Thirdly,  Stewart  heard  him  say  more  than  once  "that  he 
had  projected  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  life  a  history  of  the 
other  sciences  on  the  same  plan."  Fourthly,  the  work  exactly 
fits  in  with  all  that  we  hear  of  his  youthful  bent  for  the  Greek 
geometry  and  natural  philosophy.  Fifthly,  it  must  have  been 
written  long  before  1758,  for  he  mentions  a  prediction  that  a 
certain  comet  will  appear  in  that  year. 


I.]  EARLY  YEARS  17 

them  into  a  finished  treatise  as  in  the  two  quiet  years 
spent  at  Kirkcaldy  immediately  after  his  return,  when, 
we  are  told,  he  was  "  engaged  in  study,  but  without 
any  fixed  plan  for  his  future  life."  The  History  of 
Astronomy,  which  takes  us  from  the  schools  of  Thales 
and  Pythagoras  through  the  systems  of  Copernicus, 
Tycho  Brahe,  Galileo,  Kepler,  and  Descartes  to  that  of 
Sir  Isaac  Newton,  is  complete  in  itself,  though  from 
certain  notes  and  memoranda  which  accompanied  it 
Smith's  executors  were  led  to  believe  that  he  contem- 
plated some  further  extension.1  It  ends  very  appro- 
priately with  an  enthusiastic  description  of  Sir  Isaac 
Newton's  discovery  as  the  greatest  ever  made  by 
man.  He  had  acquired  "the  most  universal  empire 
that  was  ever  established  in  philosophy,"  and  was  the 
only  natural  philosopher  whose  system,  instead  of  being 
a  mere  invention  of  the  imagination  to  connect  other- 
wise discordant  phenomena,  appeared  to  contain  in  itself 
"the  real  chains  which  nature  makes  use  of  to  bind 
together  her  several  operations."  In  attributing  the 
History  of  Astronomy  to  Oxford  and  Kirkcaldy  I  except 
the  concluding  pages,  which  must  have  been  added  in 
the  last  years  of  his  life  ;  for  in  a  letter  to  Hume  (1773) 
he  spoke  of  it  as  a  history  of  Astronomical  Systems  to 
the  time  (not  of  Newton  but)  of  Descartes. 

Although  complete  in  itself,  this  masterly  essay 
was  plainly  meant  by  its  author  to  form  only  one 
book  in  a  great  history   of    philosophy.      It   begins 

1  "The  author  at  the  end  of  his  essay,"  says  the  advertise- 
ment, "left  some  notes  and  memorandums  from  which  it 
appears  he  considered  this  last  part  of  his  History  of  Astronomy 
as  imperfect  and  needing  several  additions."  It  consists  of  135 
pages,  and  the  imperfections  are  not  obvious  to  the  reader. 

V, 


18  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

with  three  short  introductory  sections,  the  first  on 
surprise,  the  second  on  wonder,  and  the  third  on  the 
origin  of  philosophy.  It  is  the  function  of  philosophy, 
he  says,  to  discover  the  connecting  principles  of 
nature,  and  to  explain  those  portents  which  astonish 
or  affright  mankind.  He  then  shows  that  celestial 
appearances  have  always  excited  the  greatest  curiosity, 
and  describes  with  extraordinary  learning  and  vivacity 
the  long  series  of  attempts  that  had  been  made  to 
account  for  "the  ways  of  the  sky  and  the  stars" — 

"  How  winter  suns  in  ocean  plunge  so  soon, 
And  what  delays  the  timid  nights  of  June." 

The  History  of  Ancient  Physics,  a  much  shorter  fragment, 
is  placed  in  his  collected  works  immediately  after  the 
History  of  Astronomy.  It  evidently  belongs  to  the 
same  early  period,  but  is  of  little  interest.  Upon  The 
History  of  Ancient  Logics  and  Metaphysics  we  shall  have 
something  to  say  in  our  next  chapter. 

After  two  years  of  waiting,  Adam  Smith  got  his 
opportunity.  His  neighbour,  James  Oswald  of  Dun- 
nikier,  had  become  Kirkcaldy's  representative  in 
Parliament,  and  was  now  a  Commissioner  of  the  Navy. 
Through  Oswald  Smith  seems  to  have  been  introduced 
to  Henry  Home  (Lord  Karnes),  a  leader  of  the  Edinburgh 
Bar,  and  arbiter  of  Scottish  elegancies.  Home  was  a 
warm  patron  of  English  literature,  and  was  busily 
importing  it  along  with  English  ploughs  and  other 
Southern  improvements  into  his  native  land.  What 
a  contrast  between  this  typical  Scotch  patriot  of  1750 
and  grim  old  Fletcher  of  Saltoun,  the  corresponding 
type  of  1700,  whose  remedy  for  Scottish  ills  was  to  re- 
store slavery,  and  place  all  labourers  in  the  situation  of 


I.]  EARLY  YEARS  19 

salters  and  colliers !  Finding  that  Smith  had  acquired 
the  accent  and  was  well  read  in  the  prose  and  poetry 
of  England,  Home  encouraged  him  to  give  what  we 
should  now  call  extension  lectures  in  Edinburgh. 
Accordingly  the  young  Oxford  graduate  delivered  a 
course  of  lectures  on  English  literature  in  the  winter 
of  1748-9,  adding  in  the  following  year  a  course  on 
political  economy  in  which  he  preached  the  doctrines 
of  natural  liberty  and  free  trade.  The  English  lectures 
were  attended  by  Henry  Home,  Alexander  Wedder- 
burn,  and  William  Johnstone  (Sir  William  Pulteney), 
and  proved  no  mere  success  of  esteem ;  for  they  brought 
in  a  clear  £100,  and  were  so  popular  that  they  were 
repeated  in  the  two  following  winters.  The  manu- 
script of  these  lectures  was  burnt  shortly  before  his 
death,  and  the  world  is  probably  not  much  the  poorer. 
Smith  shared  the  opinions  of  his  age,  and  set  up  Dryden, 
Pope,  and  Gray  on  pedestals  from  which  they  were 
soon  to  be  thrown  down  by  the  children  of  nature  and 
romance.  He  gave  these  lectures  afterwards  at 
Glasgow,  and  Boswell,  who  attended  them  in  1759,  told 
Johnson  that  Smith  had  condemned  blank  verse. 
Johnson  was  delighted,  and  cried  out :  "  Sir,  I  was  once 
in  company  with  Smith,  and  we  did  not  take  to  each 
other ;  but  had  I  known  that  he  loved  rhyme  as  much 
as  you  tell  me  he  does,  I  should  have  hugged  him." 
One  cannot  help  wondering  what  would  have  been 
said  if  Boswell  had  repeated  another  of  our  author's 
critical  opinions,  that  Johnson  was  "of  all  writers 
ancient  and  modern  the  one  who  kept  off  the  greatest 
distance  from  common  sense." 

The  most   valuable  part  of  Adam  Smith's  critical 
lectures  has  been  preserved  in  an  essay  on  the  Imitative 


20  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Arts,  which  I  should  judge  from  internal  evidence 
to  have  been  drafted  at  this  time,  but  to  have  been 
revised  and  improved  in  later  years.  Considering 
that  neither  Burke's  essay  on  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful 
nor  Lessing's  Laocoon  had  then  appeared,  we  cannot 
but  admire  the  originality  he  displayed  in  analysing 
the  different  effects  produced  by  sculpture,  painting, 
music,  and  dancing,  and  in  distinguishing  the  different 
pleasures  that  attend  the  various  kinds  and  degrees  of 
imitation.  He  works  out  with  much  ingenuity  the 
theory  of  the  difficulti  surmonUe  by  which  Voltaire 
accounted  for  the  effect  of  verse  and  rhyme.  Smith 
extends  this  principle  to  other  arts,  and  seeks,  always 
cleverly,  often  successfully,  to  show  that  much  of  our 
delight  in  art  arises  from  our  admiration  for  the 
artist's  skill  in  overcoming  difficulties.  He  declares  that 
a  disparity  between  the  imitating  and  the  imitated 
object  is  the  foundation  of  the  beauty  of  imitation. 
The  great  masters  of  statuary  and  painting  never 
produce  their  effects  by  deception.  To  prove  this,  he 
refers  to  the  rather  unpleasing  effect  produced  by 
painted  statues  and  by  the  reflections  of  a  mirror. 
Photography  would  have  supplied  him  with  another 
illustration. 

It  may  here  be  said  that,  though  judged  by  modern 
standards  of  criticism  Smith's  taste  was  faulty,  yet  all 
his  favourite  authors  are  in  the  first  rank,  and  there  is 
no  instance  recorded  of  his  having  bestowed  praise  on 
anything  bad  either  in  prose  or  poetry.  "You  will 
learn  more  as  to  poetry,"  he  once  said,  "by  reading 
one  good  poem  than  by  a  thousand  volumes  of 
criticism."  Wordsworth  in  one  of  his  prefaces  calls 
him   most  unjustly  "the  worst   critic,   David   Hume 


l]  EARLY  YEARS  21 

excepted,  that  Scotland,  a  soil  to  which  this  sort  of 
weed  seems  natural,  has  produced."  The  Lake  Poet, 
who  did  not  distinguish  between  the  quality  of  the 
"Ode  on  the  Intimations"  and  "Peter  Bell,"  was  pro- 
bably thinking  of  some  literary  anecdotes  that  appeared 
in  The  Bee  in  1791  after  Smith's  death.  The  writer, 
who  may  or  may  not  be  trustworthy,  is  only  repeating 
table  talk.  He  mentions  that  Smith  depreciated 
Percy's  Beliques  and  some  of  Milton's  minor  poems. 
With  regard  to  blank  verse,  Smith  said:  "they  do 
well  to  call  it  blank,  for  blank  it  is.  I  myself,  even  I, 
who  never  could  find  a  single  rhyme  in  my  life,  could 
make  blank  verse  as  fast  as  I  could  speak."  From 
this  censure  he  always  excepted  Milton;  but  he 
thought  the  English  dramatists  should  have  used 
rhyme  like  the  French.  Racine's  Phedre  appealed  to 
him  as  the  finest  of  all  tragedies.  Voltaire  was  his 
literary  pope.  Oddly  enough,  his  first  publisher's  com- 
mission was  to  collect  and  edit  (anonymously,  of  course) 
for  the  Foulis  Press  an  edition  of  the  poems  of  a  well- 
known  Jacobite,  Hamilton  of  Bangour.  The  book 
was  published  in  1748,  and  contained  the  "Braes 
of  Yarrow,"  which  Wordsworth  called  an  exquisite 
ballad.  Hamilton  had  played  poet  laureate  to  the 
Young  Pretender  in  1745,  and  was  still  an  exile  in 
France.  In  1750,  when  the  poet  was  pardoned,  he 
struck  up  a  warm  friendship  with  his  anonymous 
editor,  and  (according  to  Sir  John  Dalrymple)  Smith 
spent  with  him  "  many  happy  and  flattering  hours." 

It  has  been  said  that  in  addition  to  his  lectures 
on  English  literature  Smith  also  delivered  a  course  on 
Economics.  This  we  know  from  a  manuscript  by 
which  Dugald  Stewart  vindicates  Adam  Smith's  claim 


22  ADAM  SMITH  [chap.  i. 

to  have  been  the  original  discoverer  of  the  leading 
principles  of  political  economy.  This  manuscript,  a 
paper  read  by  Smith  to  a  learned  society  some  years 
later,  proves  that  he  wrote,  or  rather  dictated,  his 
economic  lectures  in  1749,  and  delivered  them  in  the 
following  winter. 

At  this  time  David  Hume  and  James  Oswald  were 
corresponding  on  commercial  topics.  In  1750  Hume, 
who  was  then  abroad,  sent  Oswald  his  famous  essay  on 
the  Balance  of  Trade,  and  asked  for  criticism.  Oswald 
replied  in  a  long  letter  which  shows  that  he  too  held 
very  enlightened  views  on  public  finance,  and  we  may 
be  pretty  certain  that  Smith  as  well  as  Hume  derived 
at  this  time  much  benefit  from  intercourse  with  Oswald. 
In  fact,  in  his  preface  to  Oswald's  correspondence, 
Oswald's  grandson  boasts  that  he  has  heard  Adam 
Smith,  then  the  renowned  author  of  the  Wealth  of 
Nations,  "  dilate  with  a  generous  and  enthusiastic 
pleasure  on  the  qualifications  and  merits  of  Mr.  Oswald, 
candidly  avowing  at  the  same  time  how  much  informa- 
tion he  had  received  on  many  points  from  the  enlarged 
views  and  profound  knowledge  of  that  accomplished 
statesman."  Some  allowance  should  be  made  for  the 
natural  exaggeration  of  a  Scotch  kinsman ;  but  Smith 
certainly  rated  Oswald  high,  describing  him  in  the 
paper  above  mentioned  as  one  who  combined  a  taste 
for  general  principles  with  the  detailed  information  of 
a  statesman.  Stewart  adds  that  "  he  was  one  of  Mr. 
Smith's  earliest  and  most  confidential  friends."  They 
must  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  one  another  both  in 
Kirkcaldy  and  Edinburgh  in  the  five  years  between  his 
return  from  Oxford  and  the  appointment  we  have 
now  to  record. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE  BEGINNING  OF  A  CAREER 

By  his  Edinburgh  lectures  Smith  had  proved  that  he 
could  be  at  once  learned  and  popular,  and  the  fact  that 
he  was  probably  the  only  Scottish  savant  who  had 
thoroughly  acquired  the  English  accent  at  a  time  when 
English  had  suddenly  become  highly  fashionable  north 
of  the  Tweed,  would  do  him  no  harm  in  loyal  Glasgow, 
where  the  English  connection,  with  all  its  solid  advan- 
tages, was  well  esteemed.  Accordingly  in  1750,  when 
a  vacancy  occurred  in  the  chair  of  Logic  at  Glasgow, 
Adam  Smith's  candidature  proved  very  acceptable,  and 
he  was  unanimously  appointed  by  the  Senate.  A 
week  later  he  read  a  Latin  dissertation  on  the  Origin 
of  Ideas,  signed  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith 
before  the  Presbytery  of  Glasgow,  and  took  the  usual 
oath  of  fidelity  to  the  authorities.  So  far  as  I  am 
aware,  it  has  not  been  noticed  hitherto  that  the 
substance  of  Smith's  inaugural  dissertation,  Be  Origine 
Idearum,  has  been  preserved  in  a  fragment  published 
by  his  literary  executors  after  his  death.  The  History 
of  the  Ancient  Logics  and  Metaphysics,  as  the  piece  is 
called,  deserves  notice  not  only  as  one  of  the  earliest 
specimens  of  Smith's  extraordinary  power  of  reason- 
ing, but  because  it  proves  his  interest  in  some  meta- 
physical questions  which  are  suppressed  or  ignored  in 


24  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

his  larger  treatises,  and  at  the  same  time  exhibits  the 
range  and  accuracy  of  his  classical  scholarship. 

In  describing  the  ancient  dialectic  Smith  had  to  give 
an  explanation  of  what  Plato  meant  by  "  ideas."  The 
later  Platonists  imagined  their  master  to  mean  no 
more  than  that  "  the  Deity  formed  the  world  after  what 
we  would  now  call  an  idea  or  plan  conceived  in  his 
own  mind,  in  the  same  manner  as  any  other  artist." 
Against  them  the  young  philosopher  proceeded  to 
turn  the  formidable  battery  of  ratiocination  that  was 
one  day  to  demolish  a  living  and  formidable  foe. 
It  is  characteristic  of  Adam  Smith  that  whether  he  is 
attacking  the  harmless  errors  of  an  extinct  school  of 
thought,  or  the  noxious  fallacies  of  an  established 
policy,  he  tries  every  mode  of  assault.  He  "swims,  or 
sinks,  or  wades,  or  creeps,  or  flies  " : — 

"If  Plato  had  meant  to  express  no  more  than  this  most 
natural  and  simple  of  all  notions,  he  might  surely  have 
expressed  it  more  plainly,  and  would  hardly,  one  would  think, 
have  talked  of  it  with  so  much  emphasis,  as  of  something 
which  it  required  the  utmost  reach  of  thought  to  comprehend. 
According  to  this  representation,  Plato's  notion  of  species,  or 
Universals,  was  the  same  with  that  of  Aristotle.  Aristotle, 
however,  does  not  seem  to  understand  it  as  such  ;  he  bestows 
a  great  part  of  his  Metaphysics  upon  confuting  it,  and  opposes 
it  in  all  his  other  works." 

Again,  this  notion  of  the  separate  existence  of 
Species  is  the  very  basis  of  Plato's  philosophy; 
and  there  is  not  a  single  dialogue  in  all  his  works 
which  does  not  refer  to  it.  Can  Aristotle,  "who 
appears  to  have  been  so  much  superior  to  his  master 
in  everything  but  eloquence,"  wilfully  have  misinter- 
preted   Plato's    fundamental    principle   when  Plato's 


ii.]  THE  BEGINNING  OF  A  CAREER  25 

writings  were  in  everybody's  hands  and  his  disciples 
were  spread  all  over  Greece;  when  Speusippus,  the 
nephew  and  successor  of  Plato,  as  well  as  Xenocrates, 
who  continued  the  school  in  the  Academy,  at  the  same 
time  as  Aristotle  held  his  in  the  Lyceum,  must  have 
been  ready  at  all  times  to  expose  and  affront  him  for 
such  gross  disingenuity  1  Aristotle's  interpretation  had 
been  followed  by  Cicero,  Seneca,  and  every  classical 
authority  down  to  Plutarch,  "  an  author  who  seems  to 
have  been  as  bad  a  critic  in  philosophy  as  in  history, 
and  to  have  taken  everything  at  second-hand  in  both." 
Whether  Smith  either  then  or  at  any  time  arrived  at 
metaphysical  certainty  is  very  doubtful.  "  To  explain 
the  nature,  and  to  account  for  the  origin  of  general 
Ideas  is,"  he  says,  "even  at  this  day,  the  greatest 
difficulty  in  abstract  philosophy." 

"How  the  human  mind  when  it  reasons  concerning  the 
general  nature  of  triangles,  should  either  eonceive,  as  Mr. 
Locke  imagines  it  does,  the  idea  of  a  triangle,  which  is  neither 
obtusangular,  nor  rectangular,  nor  acutangular  ;  but  which  was 
at  once  both  none  and  of  all  those  together ;  or  should,  as 
Malbranche  thinks  necessary  for  this  purpose,  comprehend  at 
once,  within  its  finite  capacity,  all  possible  triangles  of  all 
possible  forms  and  dimensions,  which  are  infinite  in  number,  is 
a  question  to  which  it  is  not  easy  to  give  a  satisfactory  answer." 

He  suggests  that  notions  like  those  of  Plato,  or 
Cudworth,  or  Malebranche,  depend  a  good  deal  upon 
the  vague  and  general  language  in  which  they  are 
expressed.  So  long  as  a  philosophy  is  not  very  dis- 
tinctly explained,  it  "  passes  easily  enough  through  the 
indolent  imagination  accustomed  to  substitute  words 
in  the  room  of  ideas."  Platonism  vanishes  indeed,  and 
is  discovered  to  be  altogether  incomprehensible  upon 


26  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

an  attentive  consideration.  It  did,  however,  require 
attentive  consideration,  and  but  for  Aristotle  "  might 
without  examination  have  continued  to  be  the  current 
philosophy  for  a  century  or  two."  This  early  and 
unnoticed  composition  proves  that  Smith  had  thought 
deeply  on  metaphysics  though  he  deliberately  avoided 
them  in  his  masterpieces. 

He  found  time  to  translate  and  read  part  of  the 
essay  as  a  Latin  dissertation ;  but  his  engagements  in 
Edinburgh  prevented  him  from  taking  up  his  new  work 
before  the  autumn.  When  October  came  he  found 
his  task  doubled.  Craigie,  the  Professor  of  Ethics, 
had  fallen  ill,  and  had  been  ordered  to  Lisbon  for 
his  health.  Smith  was  informed  of  this  by  Dr.  Cullen, 
one  of  his  new  colleagues,  and  was  requested  to 
undertake  Craigie's  duties.  It  was  further  suggested 
that  he  should  pay  particular  attention  to  juris- 
prudence and  politics,  which  were  held  to  fall  within 
the  province  of  moral  philosophy.  Smith  replies 
(3rd  September  1751)  that  he  will  gladly  relieve  Craigie 
of  his  class,  and  will  willingly  undertake  to  lecture  on 
natural  jurisprudence  and  politics. 

The  session  began  on  the  10th  of  October,  and 
soon  afterwards  came  the  news  of  Craigie's  death. 
Smith  detested  the  sophisms  of  what  he  called  "the 
cobweb  science "  of  Ontology,  and  cared  little  for 
the  Logic  of  the  schools.  He  was  anxious,  therefore, 
to  be  transferred  to  the  -chair  of  Ethics,  and  at  the 
same  time  formed  a  design  with  other  friends  to  pro- 
cure the  appointment  of  his  friend  David  Hume  to  the 
chair  of  Logic.  But  the  prejudice  against  Hume 
proved  too  strong.  "  I  should  prefer  David  Hume  to 
any  man  for  the  college,"  Smith  wrote  privately   to 


II.]  THE  BEGINNING  OF  A  CAREER  27 

Cullen,  "  but  I  am  afraid  the  public  would  not  be  of 
my  opinion,  and  the  interest  of  the  society  will  oblige 
us  to  have  regard  to  the  opinion  of  the  public."  This 
was  from  Edinburgh,  whither  Smith  had  made  what 
was  then  (incredible  as  it  may  seem)  a  two-days' 
journey  from  Glasgow,  in  order  to  wait  upon  Archibald, 
Duke  of  Argyll,  nicknamed  King  of  Scotland,  because 
he  exercised  a  sort  of  royal  influence  over  all  Scottish 
appointments.  At  the  duke's  levee  Smith  was  duly 
introduced,  and  his  application  was  successful.  The 
transfer  was  effected,  and  in  April  Smith  was  appointed 
to  the  chair  which  he  was  to  adorn  for  twelve  years. 
It  was  perhaps  the  most  important  event  of  his  life. 
For  a  temperament  like  his,  so  prone  to  study  and 
reflection,  so  averse  to  the  toil  of  the  pen,  required 
some  constant  external  stimulus,  some  congenial  induce- 
ment to  undertake  the  task  of  exposition.  His  gifts 
might  have  remained  idle,  his  talents  buried,  had  not 
the  warm  and  sympathetic  atmosphere  of  a  full,  eager, 
and  admiring  class-room  set  his  tongue  and  his  more 
reluctant  pen  in  motion.  We  need  not  brood  over 
the  might-not-have-beens ;  but  when  we  think  of  the 
power  that  fortune  exercises  over  men's  lives,  we  may 
thank  her  for  assigning  Adam  Smith  at  this  critical 
moment  to  the  town  and  University  of  Glasgow. 
By  that  propitious  act  she  lent  powerful  aid  to  the 
construction  of  a  science  that  must  ever  be  associated 
with  the  prosperity  and  peaceful  progress  of  mankind. 
Smith  himself  has  indicated  in  a  general  statement 
the  advantages  he  derived  from  this  professorship  : — 

"  To  impose  upon  any  man  the  necessity  of  teaching,  year 
after  year,  any  particular  branch  of  science,  seems,  in  reality, 
to  be  the  most  effectual  method  for  rendering  him  completely 


28  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

master  of  it  himself.  By  being  obliged  to  go  every  year  over 
the  same  ground,  if  he  is  good  for  anything  he  necessarily 
becomes,  in  a  few  years,  well  acquainted  with  every  part  of 
it :  and  if  upon  any  particular  point  he  should  form  too  hasty 
an  opinion  one  year,  when  he  comes  in  the  course  of  his 
lectures  to  reconsider  the  same  subject  the  year  thereafter,  he 
is  very  likely  to  correct  it.  As  to  be  a  teacher  of  science  is 
certainly  the  natural  employment  of  a  mere  man  of  letters,  so 
is  it  likewise  perhaps  the  education  which  is  most  likely  to 
render  him  a  man  of  solid  learning  and  knowledge." 

He  regarded  the  profession  of  teacher  as  an  educa- 
tion, and  for  that  very  reason  he  never  ceased  to  be 
a  learner  and  a  discoverer.  Instead  of  sticking  in  the 
muddy  ruts  of  dogma,  he  drove  on  gathering  facts 
and  opinions  till  he  reached  the  goal.  To  vary  a 
well-known  inscription,  he  might  have  written  over 
the  door  of  his  class-room,  "  Deverticulum  philosophi 
ad  veritatem  proficiscentis," — the  resting-place  of  a 
philosopher  on  march  to  truth.  Assuredly  a  happier 
appointment  was  never  made,  whether  we  look  at  the 
true  interests  of  the  Professor  himself  or  at  those 
of  the  University.  Smith  always  thought  the  years 
at  Glasgow  the  happiest  and  most  useful  of  his  life. 
Besides  his  strong  preference  for  Morals  over  Logic, 
he  had  carnal  reasons  to  rejoice  in  the  transference, 
for  it  gave  a  rather  better  income.  Altogether  the 
chair  of  Morals  at  Glasgow  seems  to  have  yielded 
about  £170  a  year — a  fine  income  in  Scotland  at  a 
time  when,  as  Mr.  Rae  observes,  the  largest  stipend 
in  the  Presbyterian  Church  was  £138. 

In  addition  to  salary  and  fees,  Smith  was  allotted 
a  good  house  in  the  Professors'  Court,  which  he 
shared  with  his  mother  and  cousin  (Miss  Jane 
Douglas),    who   came    from   Kirkcaldy   to    live   with 


ii.]  THE  BEGINNING  OF  A  CAREER  29 

him.  The  manses  in  the  old  Professors'  Court  were 
held  by  the  professors  in  order  of  seniority,  and  Smith 
removed  three  times  in  order  to  take  full  advantage 
of  his  privileges,  obtaining  the  best  in  1762,  when 
Leechman,  Hutcheson's  biographer,  was  appointed 
Principal.  In  1761,  when  a  second  edition  of  the 
Moral  Sentiments  appeared,  with  a  newly  inserted 
passage  describing  the  view  from  his  study  window, 
he  was  in  the  house  previously  occupied  by  Dr.  Dick, 
Professor  of  Natural  Philosophy.  To  this  house  nature 
seems  to  have  been  especially  kind, — though  in  reading 
Smith's  description  of  his  view  we  must  recollect  that 
Glasgow,  the  garden  city,  was  then  famous  for  the 
clearness  of  its  atmosphere  and  the  beauty  of  its 
surroundings.  "In  my  present  situation,"  that  is  to 
say,  looking  from  the  window  of  his  study,  he  sees 
"an  immense  landscape  of  lawns  and  woods  and  distant 
mountains."  The  landscape  illustrates  the  philosophy 
of  the  mind  :  it  "  seems  to  do  no  more  than  cover  the 
little  window  which  I  write  by  and  to  be  out  of  all 
proportion  less  than  the  chamber  in  which  I  am  sitting." 
He  can  form  a  just  comparison  between  the  great 
objects  of  the  remote  scene  and  the  little  objects  in 
the  room  only  by  transporting  himself  to  a  different 
station  from  whence  both  could  be  surveyed  at  nearly 
equal  distances.  The  image,  it  will  be  seen,  is  intro- 
duced by  Adam  Smith  to  illustrate  his  theory  of  "the 
impartial  spectator,"  the  judge  within  the  breast,  whom 
we  must  consult  if  we  are  to  see  the  things  that  con- 
cern ourselves  and  others  in  their  true  shape  and  pro- 
portions. Just  as  a  man  must  in  some  measure  be 
acquainted  with  the  philosophy  of  vision  before  he  can 
be  thoroughly  convinced  how  small  is  his  own  room 


30  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

compared  with  the  mountains  he  sees  from  his  window, 
so  to  the  selfish  and  original  passions  of  human  nature, 
unschooled  by  experience,  unassisted  by  scale  or 
measure,  "the  loss  or  gain  of  a  very  small  interest 
of  our  own  appears  to  be  of  vastly  more  importance, 
excites  a  much  more  passionate  joy  or  sorrow  than  the 
greatest  concern  of  another  with  whom  we  have  no 
particular  connection." 1 

With  the  failure  of  Hume's  candidature  for  the 
Logic  chair  was  lost  a  golden  opportunity  of  associa- 
ting two  of  the  first  philosophers  of  that  age  on  the 
staff  of  a  small  provincial  college  in  one  of  the 
poorest,  rudest,  and  least  frequented  kingdoms  of 
Western  Europe.  The  legend  that  Burke  (four  years 
before  he  published  his  Treatise  on  the  Sublime  and 
Beautiful)  was  another  candidate  has  been  adjudged 
apocryphal,  though  it  was  formerly  accepted  by  good 
authorities.  Many  of  the  Glasgow  students  were 
Irish  Presbyterians,  and  an  Irishman  might  well  have 
been  encouraged  to  seek  a  chair  in  the  University  of 
Hutcheson. 

George  Jardine,  a  student  in  1760  and  Professor 
of  Logic  from  1774,  dated  the  first  radical  reform  in 
the  teaching  of  philosophy  at  Glasgow,  from  a  royal 
visitation  of  1727,  after  which  each  professor  was  re- 
stricted to  a  particular  department  instead  of  being 
required  to  lecture  for  three  successive  years  in  logic, 
ethics,  and  physics.  He  adds  that  the  improvements 
thus  introduced  were  greatly  promoted  by  fortunate  ap- 
pointments. First  came  Dr.  Francis  Hutcheson,  whose 
"  copious  and  splendid  eloquence  "  illustrated  an  amiable 

1  Moral  Sentiments,  Part  in.  chap.  ii.  p.  210  of  the  second, 
third,  and  fourth  editions ;  chap.  iii.  of  the  sixth  edition. 


ii.]  THE  BEGINNING  OF  A  CAREER  31 

system  of  morality,  and  at  the  same  time  popularised 
the  use  of  English  as  the  medium  of  instruction. 
Hutcheson's  reforms  were  not  suspended  by  his  death. 
But  the  Logic  class  continued  to  be  conducted  in  Latin 
until  Adam  Smith,  being  rather  unexpectedly  called  to 
the  office  in  1750,  "found  it  necessary  to  read  in  the 
English  language  a  course  of  lectures  in  Rhetoric  and 
Belles  Lettres  which  he  had  formerly  delivered  in 
Edinburgh."  The  last  department  in  the  University  to 
abandon  Latin  was  Law,  and  the  innovator  was  Smith's 
pupil  and  friend,  John  Millar. 

After  Smith's  brief  tenure  of  the  chair,  Logic  fell 
back  for  a  time  to  its  old  subject-matter,  but  the 
Latin  medium  could  not  be  revived.  "From  the  time 
that  the  lectures  began  to  be  delivered  in  English  the 
eyes  of  men  were  opened,"  writes  Jardine.  It  was 
felt  that  the  old  logic  of  the  schools,  even  when  per- 
fectly understood,  had  little  or  no  connection  with 
modern  thought,  and  none  with  the  active  business  of 
life.  The  local  situation,  too,  of  the  University  in  a 
great  commercial  city,  where  men  had  a  quick  per- 
ception of  utility,  and  looked  for  a  clear  adaptation 
of  means  to  ends,  helped  to  promote  reform.  But 
dislike  of  Logic  and  Ontology  was  not  peculiar  to 
Smith  or  to  Glasgow.  They  were  discountenanced  by 
the  most  popular  philosopher  of  that  age.  "  Had  the 
craftiest  men,"  wrote  Shaftesbury  in  his  Characteristics, 
"for  many  ages  together  been  employed  in  finding 
out  a  method  to  confound  reason  and  to  degrade  the 
understandings  of  men,  they  could  not  perhaps  have 
succeeded  better  than  by  the  establishing  of  this 
mock  science."  Hutcheson  had  ignored  logic  and 
avoided  metaphysical  problems.    In  his  Theory  of  Moral 


32  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Sentiments,  Smith  renounced  "  the  abstruse  syllogisms 
of  a  quibbling  dialectic  ";  but  he  never  made  the  mistake 
of  confounding  Aristotle  with  the  Aristotelians. 

There  is  in  the  Wealth  of  Nations  a  highly  interest- 
ing digression  upon  the  Universities,  to  explain  how 
Greek  conceptions  of  philosophy  were  debased  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  how  its  ancient  division  into  three 
parts  was  altered  for  another  into  five  in  most  of 
the  academies  of  Europe.  In  the  ancient  philosophy, 
whatever  was  taught  concerning  the  nature  either  of 
the  human  mind  or  the  deity  made  a  part  of  the  system 
of  physics.  Whatever  reason  could  conclude  or  con- 
jecture upon  the  human  and  the  divine  mind,  made 
two  chapters  of  "  the  science  which  pretended  to  give 
an  account  of  the  origin  and  revolutions  of  the  great 
system  of  the  universe."  But  in  the  universities  of 
Europe,  "where  philosophy  was  taught  only  as  sub- 
servient to  theology,"  it  was  natural  to  dwell  upon 
these  two  chapters  and  to  make  them  distinct  sciences. 
And  so  Metaphysics  or  Pneumatics  were  set  up  in 
opposition  to  Physics. 

The  result  was,  in  Adam  Smiths  view,  disastrous. 
While  on  the  one  hand,  subjects  requiring  experiment 
and  observation,  and  capable  of  yielding  many  useful  dis- 
coveries, were  almost  entirely  neglected ;  on  the  other  a 
subject,  in  which  "after  a  few  very  simple  and  obvious 
truths  the  most  careful  attention  can  discover  nothing 
but  obscurity  and  uncertainty,  and  can  consequently 
produce  nothing  but  subtleties  and  sophisms,  was 
greatly  cultivated."  Metaphysics  having  thus  been  set 
up  in  opposition  to  physics,  the  comparison  between 
them  naturally  gave  birth  to  a  third,  called  ontology, 
or  the  science  which  treated  of  the  qualities  and  attri- 


ii.]  THE  BEGINNING  OF  A  CAREER  33 

butes  common  to  both.  "  But  if  subtleties  and  sophisms 
composed  the  greater  part  of  the  Metaphysics  or  Pneu- 
matics of  the  schools,  they  composed  the  whole  of  this 
cobweb  science  of  Ontology."  Holding  these  views,  it 
is  not  surprising  that  Smith  welcomed  an  escape  from 
this  chair  to  one  which  proposed  as  its  object  an  inquiry 
of  a  very  different  nature  :  wherein  consists  the  happi- 
ness and  perfection  of  a  man,  considered  not  only  as 
an  individual,  but  as  the  member  of  a  family,  of  a  state, 
and  of  the  great  society  of  mankind.  Here  was  a 
stepping-stone  to  the  Wealth  of  Nations.  Meanwhile 
he  did  what  he  could  to  unsettle  the  cobweb  sciences. 

Of  Smith  as  a  logician,  John  Millar,  a  member  of 
his  class  in  1751-2,  wrote  that  he  "saw  the  necessity 
of  departing  widely  from  the  plan  that  had  been 
followed  by  his  predecessors,  and  of  directing  the 
attention  of  his  pupils  to  studies  of  a  more  interesting 
and  useful  nature  than  the  logic  and  the  metaphysics 
of  the  schools."  Accordingly,  says  Millar,  "after  ex- 
hibiting a  general  view  of  the  powers  of  the  mind,  and 
explaining  so  much  of  the  ancient  logic  as  was  requisite 
to  gratify  curiosity  with  respect  to  an  artificial  method 
of  reasoning  which  had  once  occupied  the  universal 
attention  of  the  learned,  he  dedicated  all  the  rest  of 
his  time  to  the  delivery  of  a  system  of  rhetoric  and 
belles  lettres."  Another  of  those  who  attended  his 
classes  at  Glasgow  says  that  even  after  he  became 
Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy  he  would  from  time  to 
time  give  lectures  on  taste  and  literature,  and  it  must 
have  been  one  of  these  that  Boswell  heard  in  1759. 
Art,  the  drama,  and  music  were  always  favourite  objects 
of  his  speculations,  and  doubtless  the  substance  of  his 
essay  on  the  Imitative  Arts  was  delivered  from  time 

C 


34  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

to  time  in  the  University.     Millar  says  Smith  never 
appeared  to  greater  advantage  than  as  a  lecturer: — 

"  His  manner,  though  not  graceful,  -was  plain  and  unaffected, 
and  as  he  seemed  to  he  always  interested  in  the  subject,  he 
never  failed  to  interest  his  hearers.  Each  discourse  consisted 
commonly  of  several  distinct  propositions,  which  he  succes- 
sively endeavoured  to  prove  and  illustrate.  These  proposi- 
tions when  announced  in  general  terms  had,  from  their  extent, 
not  unfrequently  something  of  the  air  of  a  paradox.  In  his 
attempts  to  explain  them,  he  often  appeared  at  first  not  to  be 
sufficiently  possessed  of  the  subject,  and  spoke  with  some 
hesitation.  As  he  advanced,  however,  the  matter  seemed  to 
crowd  upon  him,  his  manner  became  warm  and  animated, 
and  his  expression  easy  and  fluent.  In  points  susceptible  of 
controversy  you  could  easily  discern  that  he  secretly  conceived 
an  opposition  to  his  opinions,  and  that  he  was  led  upon  this 
account  to  support  them  with  greater  energy  and  vehemence. 
By  the  fulness  and  variety  of  his  illustrations  the  subject 
gradually  swelled  in  his  hands  and  acquired  a  dimension 
which,  without  a  tedious  repetition  of  the  same  views,  was 
calculated  to  seize  the  attention  of  his  audience,  and  to  afford 
them  pleasure  as  well  as  instruction  in  following  the  same 
subject  through  all  the  diversity  of  shades  and  aspects  in 
which  it  was  presented,  and  afterwards  in  tracing  it  backwards 
to  that  original  proposition  or  general  truth  from  which  this 
beautiful  train  of  speculation  had  proceeded." 

Another  old  pupil  dwelt  upon  his  "  animated  and 
extemporaneous  eloquence,"  especially  when  he  was 
drawn  into  digressions  in  the  course  of  question  and 
answer.  Smith  himself  attributed  his  success  very 
largely  to  the  vigilant  care  with  which  he  watched  his 
audience;  for  he  depended  very  much  upon  their 
sympathy.  "During  one  whole  session,"  he  is  reported 
to  have  said,  "a  certain  student  with  a  plain  but  expres- 
sive countenance  was  of  great  use  to  me  in  judging  of 


ii.]  THE  BEGINNING  OF  A  CAREER  35 

my  success.  He  sat  conspicuously  in  front  of  a  pillar  :  I 
had  him  constantly  under  my  eye.  If  he  leant  forward 
to  listen  all  was  right,  and  I  knew  that  I  had  the  ear 
of  my  class ;  but  if  he  leant  back  in  an  attitude  of  list- 
lessness  I  felt  at  once  that  all  was  wrong,  and  that  I 
must  change  either  the  subject  or  the  style  of  my 
address." 


CHAPTEE    III 

THEOLOGY  AND  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS 

The  age  into  which  Adam  Smith  was  born  was  an  age 
of  religious  doubt  and  philosophic  curiosity.  During 
his  lifetime  the  governing  classes  in  England,  undis- 
turbed by  enthusiasms,  were  little  disposed  to  entertain 
revolutionary  ideas  in  politics  or  religion.  It  seemed 
to  be  the  function  of  philosophic  thinkers  to  leave  the 
constitution  of  a  tolerably  liberal  State  and  a  tolerably 
lax  Church,  and  to  advance  in  other  directions.  The 
fierce  storms  that  bent  the  course  of  Selden  and 
Milton  and  Hobbes  had  abated.    Men  tried  to  forget 

"  The  lifted  axe,  the  agonising  wheel, 
Luke's  iron  crown,  and  Damiens'  bed  of  steel." 

No  one  believed  that  the  Deity  created  kings ;  many 
doubted  whether  there  was  a  Deity  at  all.  Since  the 
great  days  of  Athens,  philosophy  had  seldom  reaped  a 
richer  harvest  than  in  Great^  Britain  during  the  eighty 
years  that  followed  the  Act  of  Union.  Newton's 
Principle/,,  and  the  philosophy  of  Shaftesbury,  Clarke, 
Mandeville,  Hutcheson,  and  Butler,  as  well  as  of  Hume 
and  Adam  Smith,  all  fall  within  this  period.  Specu- 
lative discovery  went  hand  in  hand  with  mechanical 
invention.  The  poetry  of  enthusiasm,  religious  and 
political  fervour,  persecution,  martyrdom,  with  all  their 

36 


chap,  in.]      RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS  37 

heroic  and  squalid  accompaniments,  preceded  and 
followed  this  prosaic  illumination.  It  was  a  chapter  of 
dry  light  between  two  of  heat  and  fire  and  smoke. 
Reason  reigned ;  and  as  reason  seldom  wears  an  air  of 
originality,  we  need  not  wonder  if  later  ingenuity  has 
discovered  that  all  these  philosophers  borrowed  their 
doctrines  either  from  the  ancients  or  from  one  another 
or  from  foreigners. 

But  though  there  appears  to  be  just  now  a  tendency 
to  carry  the  search  for  the  genealogy  and  pedigree  of 
ideas  rather  too  far,  it  is  certainly  not  our  purpose  to 
show  that  Adam  Smith  was  a  solitary  conqueror  who 
founded  a  kingdom  entirely  for  himself,  and  peopled  it 
with  the  creatures  of  his  imagination.  Every  great 
thinker  holds  the  past  in  fee,  as  he  levies  a  perpetual 
tribute  on  the  future.  We  may  see  how  in  the  Tlieory 
of  Moral  Sentiments  and  in  his  lectures  on  Justice  and 
Police  Smith  selected  and  used  his  materials;  how, 
with  the  aid  of  Hutcheson  and  Mandeville  and 
Hume,  he  invented  a  new  doctrine  of  sympathy,  and 
how  he  worked  up  the  Platonic  idea  of  the  division 
of  labour,  and  the  Aristotelian  theory  of  money, 
into  a  true  science  of  national  wealth.  Nothing 
is  left  of  the  first  part  of  the  lectures,  which  dealt 
(briefly,  no  doubt)  with  natural  theology  and,  in 
the  earliest  years  of  his  professorship,  very  fully  with 
moral  philosophy.  His  pupil  and  friend  Millar  says 
that  under  the  head  of  Natural  Theology,  the  first  part 
of  his  course,  Smith  considered  the  proofs  of  the  being 
and  attributes  of  God,  and  those  principles  of  the 
human  mind  upon  which  religion  is  founded. 

In  the  Moral  Sentiments  and  his  other  writings  there 
are  plenty  of  passages  to  indicate  that  he  was  a  theist 


38  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

with  a  belief  rather  more  active  and  definite  than 
that  of  his  friend  Hume  or  of  his  master  Aristotle,  but 
few  or  none  that  he  was  a  Christian.  As  professor  he 
had  to  sign  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  a 
perfunctory  act  which  even  Hume  would  readily  have 
performed  without  the  scandal  that  surrounded  Jowett's 
cynical  subscription  a  century  later.  But  it  was 
noticed  by  the  orthodox  that  he  was  sadly  wanting  in 
zeal.  Hutcheson,  doubtless  with  the  purpose  of 
naturalising  theology,  had  conducted  a  Sunday  class 
on  Christian  evidences.  Adam  Smith  discontinued 
this  practice,  and  it  was  even  whispered  that  he  had 
applied  to  the  authorities  shortly  after  his  appoint- 
ment to  be  excused  from  opening  his  class  with  prayer. 
The  request  was  refused,  but  the  results  were  not  satis- 
factory ;  for  according  to  a  contemporary,  John 
Ramsay  of  Ochtertyre,  his  opening  prayers  "  savoured 
strongly  of  natural  religion,"  while  his  theological 
lectures,  though  shorter,  were  no  less  flattering  to 
human  pride  than  those  of  Hutcheson,  and  led  "pre- 
sumptuous striplings  "  to  draw  the  unwarranted  conclu- 
sion "that  the  great  truths  of  theology,  together  with 
the  duties  which  man  owes  to  God  and  his  neighbours, 
may  be  discovered  by  the  light  of  nature  without  any 
special  revelation."  He  was  also,  they  say,  often  seen 
to  smile  openly  during  divine  service  in  his  place  in  the 
college  chapel.  When  one  remembers  what  orthodox 
Scottish  sermons  at  that  time  meant,  it  is  safe  to  con- 
jecture that  the  smile  was  not  always  due  (as  Ramsay 
would  have  it)  to  an  absent  thought. 

Although  the  lectures  on  Natural  Theology  have 
disappeared,  the  lectures  on  Morals  were  elaborated 
and  published  in  1759  as  The  Theory  of  Moral  Senti- 


in.]  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS  39 

merits.  From  this,  his  first  important  work,  we  may 
sufficiently  ascertain  how  far  Smith's  philosophy  of 
life  was  based  upon  religious  conceptions.  Fortune 
governs  the  world.  Nature  intended  the  happiness 
and  perfection  of  the  species.  Every  part  of  nature, 
when  attentively  surveyed,  equally  demonstrates  the 
providential  care  of  its  Author.  Smith's  own  scepti- 
cism is  so  carefully  phrased  and  so  disguised  in  soft 
language,  that  a  stupid  reader  is  never  perplexed,  a 
devout  one  never  offended.  Take,  for  example,  his 
reflections  upon  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life.  That 
there  is  a  world  to  come,  he  says  in  a  passage  of  striking 
eloquence,  "  is  a  doctrine  in  every  respect  so  venerable, 
so  comfortable  to  the  weakness,  so  flattering  to  the 
grandeur  of  human  nature,  that  the  virtuous  man,  who 
has  the  misfortune  to  doubt  of  it,  cannot  possibly 
avoid  wishing  most  earnestly  and  anxiously  to  believe 
it.  It  could  never  have  been  exposed  to  the  derision 
of  the  scoffer,  had  not  the  distribution  of  rewards  and 
punishments,  which  some  of  its  most  zealous  assertors 
have  taught  us  was  to  be  made  in  that  world  to  come, 
been  too  frequently  in  direct  opposition  to  all  our 
moral  sentiments."  Smith  had  no  great  respect  for  the 
devout.  To  him  the  ritual  and  worship  of  the  Deity 
seemed  like  the  service  and  courtship  of  kings.  He 
refuses  to  believe  that  an  all-wise  Deity  would  have  a 
mind  for  adulation  or  would  offer  heavenly  rewards  to 
those  who  consecrate  their  lives  to  His  worship  : — 

"That  the  assiduous  courtier  is  often  more  favoured  than 
the  faithful  and  active  servant ;  that  attendance  and  adula- 
tion are  often  shorter  and  surer  roads  to  preferment  than  merit 
or  service  ;  and  that  a  campaign  at  Versailles  or  St.  James's  is 
often  worth  two  either  in  Germany  or  Flanders,  is  a  complaint 


40  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

which  we  have  all  heard  from  many  a  venerable,  but  discon- 
tented, old  officer.  But  what  is  considered  as  the  greatest 
reproach  even  to  the  weakness  of  earthly  sovereigns,  has  been 
ascribed,  asan  act  of  justice,  to  divine  perfection  ;  and  the 
duties  of  devotion,  the  public  and  private  worship  of  the  Deity, 
have  been  represented  even  by  men  of  virtue  and  abilities,  as 
the  sole  virtues  which  can  either  entitle  to  reward  or  exempt 
from  punishment  in  the  life  to  come." 

His  indignation  flames  out  against  celebrated 
doctors,  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  who  have  ques- 
tioned whether  faith  should  be  kept  with  rebels  and 
heretics  ("those  unlucky  persons  who,  when  things 
have  come  to  a  certain  degree  of  violence,  have  the 
misfortune  to  be  of  the  weaker  party ").  Of  all  the 
corrupters  of  moral  sentiments,  "  faction  and  fanaticism 
have  always  been  by  far  the  greatest." 

Morality  is  natural,  but  its  rules  have  been  sanctioned 
by  the  rudest  forms  of  religion.  Whether  our  moral 
faculties  depend  upon  a  modification  of  reason,  upon 
a  moral  sense,  or  upon  some  other  principle  of  our 
nature,  they  carry  with  them  the  most  evident  badges 
of  authority,  and  were  plainly  set  up  within  us  to 
superintend  our  passions  and  appetites  and  to  be  the 
supreme  arbiters  of  our  actions.  They  are  described 
in  religious  language  as  the  vice-regents  of  God  within 
us ;  they  never  fail  to  punish  sin  by  the  torments  of 
inward  shame  and  self-condemnation;  they  reward 
obedience  with  tranquillity  and  contentment.  Oncken 
thinks  that  Smith's  eloquent  vindication  of  conscience 
helped  to  form  Kant's  moral  idealism ;  but  it  puts  us 
more  in  mind  of  the  Roman  satirist's  great  line — 

"  Nocte  dieque  suum  gestare  in  pectore  testem." 
Moral  judgments  likewise  help  to  correct  in  some 


in.]  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS  41 

measure  the  course  of  this  world.  "  The  industrious 
knave  cultivates  the  soil;  the  indolent  good  man 
leaves  it  uncultivated.  Who  ought  to  reap  the 
harvest  ? "  Here  the  natural  course  of  things  decides 
against  the  natural  sentiments  of  mankind.  Human 
laws  therefore  often  punish  the  knave  or  traitor  though 
industrious,  and  reward  the  good  citizen  though  im- 
provident. Thus  man  is  by  nature  prompted  to  correct 
nature ;  but  even  so  his  endeavours  are  often  impotent ; 
the  current  is  too  strong.  Our  natural  sentiments  are 
often  shocked.  We  see  great  combinations  oppress 
small.  We  see  the  innocent  suffer.  Despairing  of 
earthly  forces  to  check  the  triumph  of  injustice,  we 
naturally  appeal  to  heaven,  "and  thus  we  are  led  to  a 
belief  in  the  future  state  by  the  love  of  virtue,"  and 
moral  rules  acquire  new  sanctity  by  being  regarded  as 
the  laws  of  an  all-powerful  Deity.  As  religion  in  this 
way  enforces  an  innate  sense  of  duty,  mankind  is 
generally  disposed  to  place  great  confidence  in  the 
probity  of  those  who  seem  to  be  deeply  religious. 

And  where  religion  has  not  been  corrupted, 
"wherever  men  are  not  taught  to  regard  frivolous 
observances,  as  more  immediate  duties  of  religion, 
than  acts  of  justice  and  beneficence ;  and  to  imagine, 
that  by  sacrifices,  and  ceremonies,  and  vain  supplica- 
tions, they  can  bargain  with  the  Deity  for  fraud,  and 
perfidy,  and  violence,  the  world  undoubtedly  judges 
right  in  this  respect,  and  justly  places  a  double 
confidence  in  the  rectitude  of  the  religious  man's 
behaviour." 

Upon  the  dangerous  question  of  religious  establish- 
ments and  dissenting  sects  he  wrote  afterwards  in 
the   Wealth  of  Nations  (Book  v.  i.)  with  a  boldness 


42  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

and  an  air  of  detachment  that  might  well  startle  even 
that  age  of  tolerant  indifference.  He  contrasts  the 
teachers  of  new  religions  with  the  clergy  of  an  ancient 
system,  who  are  frequently  possessed  of  learning, 
eloquence,  and  all  the  gentlemanly  virtues.  "Such 
a  clergy,  when  attacked  by  a  set  of  popular  and  bold 
though  perhaps  stupid  and  ignorant  enthusiasts,  feel 
themselves  as  perfectly  defenceless  as  the  indolent, 
effeminate,  and  full-fed  nations  of  the  southern  parts  of 
Asia,  when  they  were  invaded  by  the  active,  hardy, 
and  hungry  Tartars  of  the  north."  Commonly,  the 
only  resource  of  such  a  clergy  upon  such  an  emergency 
is  to  summon  the  government  to  persecute  or  expel 
their  adversaries.  "It  was  thus  that  the  Eoman 
Catholic  clergy  called  upon  the  civil  magistrate  to 
persecute  the  Protestants,  and  the  Church  of  England 
to  persecute  the  Dissenters." 

An  established  church  may  have  a  superiority  of 
learning,  but  in  the  art  of  gaining  popularity  the 
advantage  is  always  with  its  adversaries.  He  finds 
that,  as  dissenting  bodies  grow  richer,  their  zeal  and 
activity  abate.  The  Independents,  for  instance,  had 
many  learned,  ingenious,  and  respectable  men ;  but  the 
Methodists,  without  half  the  learning  of  the  Dissenters, 
were  more  in  vogue.  The  strength  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  he  attributed  to  the  fact  that  the  industry  of  its 
inferior  clergy  was  better  fostered  by  motives  of  self- 
interest  than  in  the  case  of  any  established  Protestant 
church ;  for  many  of  the  parish  priests  subsisted  largely 
on  voluntary  gifts,  "  a  source  of  revenue  which  con- 
fession gives  them  many  opportunities  of  improving." 
He  notes  also  Machiavelli's  observation,  that  the 
establishment  of  the  begging  orders  of  St.  Dominic  and 


in.]  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS  43 

St.  Francis  revived,  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  the  languishing  faith  and  devotion  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  Upon  the  question  of  the  value  of 
a  State  Church,  Smith  quotes  from  a  certain  passage  of 
Hume's  History,  referring  to  his  friend  as  "  by  far  the 
most  illustrious  philosopher  and  historian  of  the  present 
age."  Hume  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  civil 
magistrate  who  neglects  to  establish  a  religion  will  find 
he  has  dearly  paid  for  his  frugality,  "and  that  in 
reality  the  most  decent  and  advantageous  composition 
which  he  can  make  with  the  spiritual  guides,  is  to 
bribe  their  indolence  by  assigning  stated  salaries  to 
their  profession,"  so  that  ecclesiastical  establishments, 
"though  commonly  they  arose  at  first  from  religious 
views,  prove  in  the  end  advantageous  to  the  political 
interests  of  society." 

But  Smith,  with  the  same  dislike  for  "zeal,"  had 
too  much  respect  for  liberty,  too  much  love  of  honesty 
in  politics,  to  adopt  Hume's  cynical  solution.  He 
would  find  security  in  numbers.  A  State  shoulp 
extend  toleration  to  all;  society  would  naturally 
divide  itself  into  hundreds  of  small  sects,  none  of 
which  could  be  considerable  enough  to  disturb  the 
public  tranquillity.  The  teachers  of  each  sect  would 
be  forced  to  learn  a  candour  and  moderation  which  is 
seldom  to  be  found  among  an  established  clergy ;  and 
in  this  way,  by  mutual  concessions,  their  doctrine 
would  probably  be  reduced  in  time  "  to  that  pure  and 
rational  religion,  free  from  every  mixture  of  absurdity, 
imposture,  or  fanaticism,  such  as  wise  men  have  in  all 
ages  of  the  world  wished  to  see  established,  but  such 
as  positive  law  has  perhaps  never  yet  established  in 
any  country."    This  plan  of  ecclesiastical  government, 


44  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

he  adds,  or  more  properly  no  ecclesiastical  government, 
was  what  the  Independents,  "  a  sect  no  doubt  of  very 
wild  enthusiasts,"  proposed  to  establish  in  England 
towards  the  end  of  the  Civil  War.  "If  it  had  been 
established,  though  of  a  very  unphilosophical  origin,  it 
would  probably  by  this  time  have  been  productive  of 
the  most  philosophical  good  temper  and  moderation 
with  regard  to  every  sort  of  religious  principle."  Such 
is  the  plan  favoured  by  Adam  Smith,  and  he  observes 
that  in  Pennsylvania,  where  it  had  been  adopted, 
experience  justified  his  opinion. 

Smith  was  so  popular  with  his  orthodox  contempo- 
raries that  they  tried  to  parry  charges  of  infidelity  by 
saying  either  that  he  had  adopted  Hume's  opinions 
out  of  the  intense  affection  he  felt  for  him,  or  that  he 
had  been  perverted  by  French  atheists.  "  In  the  course 
of  his  travels,"  says  one  of  the  most  broad-minded  of 
his  Presbyterian  contemporaries  (John  Ramsay),  "he 
became  acquainted  with  Voltaire  and  the  other  French 
philosophers  who  were  then  labouring  with  unhallowed 
industry  in  the  vineyard  of  infidelity."  What  impres- 
sion they  made  upon  him,  adds  this  cautious  man, 
"cannot  be  precisely  known,  because  neither  before 
nor  after  this  period  was  his  religious  creed  ever 
properly  ascertained." 

Twenty  years  after  Adam  Smith's  death,  Archbishop 
Magee,  in  a  controversy  with  Unitarian  theologians, 
cited  a  passage  from  the  Moral  Sentiments  on  the 
doctrine  of  atonement,  in  which  Smith  had  said  that 
the  doctrines  of  revelation  coincide  in  every  respect 
with  the  original  anticipations  of  nature.  "Such," 
wrote  the  divine,  "are  the  reflections  of  a  man  whose 
powers  of  thinking  and  reasoning  will  surely  not  be 


in.]  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS  45 

pronounced  inferior  to  those  of  any  even  of  the  most 
distinguished  champions  of  the  Unitarian  school." 
The  rejoinder  was  at  once  made  that  in  the  sixth 
edition,  which  Smith  prepared  for  the  press  in  1790, 
the  passage  was  omitted ;  whereupon  the  prelate  (for- 
getting that  Hume  died  in  1776,  after  four  editions 
had  appeared  with  this  presentation  of  the  reasonable- 
ness of  an  atonement)  deftly  turned  a  new  moral :  "  It 
adds  one  proof  more  to  the  many  that  already  existed 
of  the  danger,  even  to  the  most  enlightened,  from  a 
familiar  contact  with  infidelity." 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS 

In  1759,  the  seventh  year  of  his  professorship,  Smith 
completed  the  first  of  his  two  capital  achievements. 
His  scholiasts  are  still  curiously  hazy  about  its  early 
editions,  partly  perhaps  because  neither  the  first, 
second,  nor  third  is  to  be  found  in  the  library  of  the 
British  Museum.  The  first  edition  is  a  single  octavo 
volume  of  551  pages,  printed  in  good  large  type.1  The 
title-page  runs  as  follows : — 

THE 

THEORY 

OF 

MORAL    SENTIMENTS 

by  Adam  Smith 

Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy  in  the 
University  of  Glasgow. 

London : 

Printed  for  A.  Millar,  in  the  Strand 

and  A.  Kincaid  and  J.  Bell  in  Edinburgh. 

MDCCLIX. 

1  Mr.  Rae,  usually  the  most  accurate  of  authorities,  states 
that  the  first  edition  appeared  "  in  two  volumes  8vo." 
46 


ch.iv.]    THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS    47 

Andrew  Millar  was  then  at  the  head  of  the  London 
publishers.  He  had  shown  some  time  before,  when 
Hume's  History  fell  into  his  hands,  that  he  knew  how 
to  push  a  good  book,  and  on  this  occasion  too  the  firm 
lived  up  to  its  reputation. 

Early  in  April,  Hume,  who  was  in  London,  received 
some  copies,  and  wrote  to  thank  Smith  "for  the 
agreeable  present."  Always  zealous  in  the  service  of 
friendship  and  Scottish  literature,  he  employed  all  the 
wiles  of  diplomacy  to  promote  the  success  of  the  book. 
"Wedderburn  and  I,"  he  writes,  "made  presents  of 
our  copies  to  such  of  our  acquaintances  as  we  thought 
good  judges  and  proper  to  spread  the  reputation  of 
the  book.  I  sent  one  to  the  Duke  of  Argyle,  and 
Lord  Lyttelton,  Horace  Walpole,  Soame  Jenyns,  and 
Bourke,  an  English  gentleman  who  wrote  lately  a  very 
pretty  treatise  on  the  Sublime.  Millar  (the  publisher) 
desired  my  permission  to  send  one  in  your  name 
to  Dr.  Warburton."  Hume  had  delayed  writing  till 
he  could  tell  how  the  book  had  been  received  and 
"  could  prognosticate  with  some  probability  whether  it 
should  be  finally  damned  to  oblivion,  or  should  be 
registered  in  the  Temple  of  Immortality."  Though  it 
has  only  been  out  for  a  few  weeks,  he  thinks  he  can 
now  foretell  its  fate.  But  instead  of  gratifying  an 
author's  impatience,  Hume  pretends  to  have  been 
interrupted  by  an  impertinent  visitor,  and  digresses 
upon  vacancies  in  the  Scottish  Universities,  upon  a 
new  edition  of  Ferguson's  Treatise  on  Refinement,  on 
Wilkie's  Epigoniad,  and  Lord  Karnes's  Law  Tracts.  At 
last  he  seems  to  be  coming  to  the  point : — 

"  But  to  return  to  your  book  and  its  success  in  this 
town.     I  must  tell  you 


48  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

"A  plague  to  interruptions! — I  ordered  myself  to 
be  denied,  and  yet  here  is  one  that  has  broken  in  upon 
me  again."  The  second  visitor  was  a  man  of  letters, 
and  Hume  goes  off  on  a  new  scent.  He  advises  Smith 
to  read  Helvetius's  new  book  De  L'Esprit,  and  adds, 
"Voltaire  has  lately  published  a  small  work  called 
Candide  ou  L'Optimisme.    I  shall  give  you  a  detail  of  it." 

At  last  the  badinage  comes  to  an  end  with  a  warn- 
ing that  popularity  is  no  test  of  merit.  A  wise  man 
should  rather  be  disquieted  than  elated  by  the  appro- 
bation of  the  multitude : — 

"  Supposing,  therefore,  that  you  have  duly  prepared  yourself 
for  the  worst  by  all  these  reflections,  I  proceed  to  tell  you  the 
melancholy  news  that  your  book  has  been  very  unfortunate, 
for  the  public  seem  disposed  to  applaud  it  extremely.  It  was 
looked  for  by  the  foolish  people  with  some  impatience  ;  and 
the  mob  of  literati  are  beginning  already  to  be  very  loud  in 
its  praises.  Three  bishops  called  yesterday  at  Millar's  shop 
in  order  to  buy  copies,  and  to  ask  questions  about  the  author. 
The  Bishop  of  Peterborough  said  he  had  passed  the  evening 
in  a  company  where  he  heard  it  extolled  above  all  books  in  the 
world.  The  Duke  of  Argyle  is  more  decisive  than  he  used  to 
be  in  its  favour.  I  suppose  he  either  considers  it  as  an  exotic, 
or  thinks  the  author  will  be  very  serviceable  to  him  in  the 
Glasgow  elections.  Lord  Lyttelton  says  that  Robertson  and 
Smith  and  Bower  are  the  glories  of  English  literature. 
Oswald  protests  he  does  not  know  whether  he  has  reaped 
more  instruction  or  entertainment  from  it,  but  you  may  easily 
judge  what  reliance  can  be  placed  on  his  judgment.  He  has 
been  engaged  all  his  life  in  public  business,  and  he  never  sees 
any  faults  in  his  friends.  Millar  exults  and  brags  that  two- 
thirds  of  the  edition  are  already  sold,  and  that  he  is  now  sure 
of  success.  You  see  what  a  son  of  the  earth  that  is,  to  value 
books  only  by  the  profit  they  bring  him.  In  that  view,  I 
■believe,  it  may  prove  a  very  good  book. 

"  Charles  Townshend,  who  passes  for  the  cleverest  fellow  in 


iv.]      THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS       49 

England,  is  so  much  taken  with  the  performance,  that  he  said 
to  Oswald  he  would  put  the  Duke  of  Buccleugh  under  the 
author's  care,  and  would  make  it  worth  his  while  to  accept  of 
that  charge.  As  soon  as  I  heard  this,  I  called  on  him  twice 
with  a  view  of  talking  with  him  ahout  the  matter,  and  of  con- 
vincing him  of  the  propriety  of  sending  that  young  gentleman 
to  Glasgow,  for  I  could  not  hope  that  he  could  offer  you  any 
terms  which  would  tempt  you  to  renounce  your  professorship  ; 
but  I  missed  him.  Mr.  Townshend  passes  for  being  a  little 
uncertain  in  his  resolutions,  so  perhaps  you  need  not  build 
much  on  his  sally." 

On  this  occasion,  as  will  appear  in  a  later  chapter, 
Townshend  proved  true  to  his  resolve  and  false  to  his 
reputation. 

Burke,  who  afterwards  became  one  of  Smith's  most 
intimate  friends,  was  at  this  time  known  for  his  philo- 
sophical inquiry  into  the  origin  of  our  ideas  of  the 
Sublime  and  Beautiful  (1757).  He  was  also  a  prin- 
cipal contributor  to  the  Annual  Register;  and  that 
publication,  in  its  admirable  account  of  books  pub- 
lished during  the  year  1759,  quotes  a  long  passage 
from  the  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments,  with  a  prefatory 
tribute  from  Burke's  pen,  which  might  quench  the 
thirst  of  the  thirstiest  author.  Smith  is  praised  for 
having  struck  out  a  new,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
perfectly  natural,  road  of  ethical  speculation. 

"The  theory  is  in  all  its  essential  parts  just,  and  founded 
on  truth  and  nature.  The  author  seeks  for  the  founda- 
tion of  the  just,  the  fit,  the  proper,  the  decent,  in  our  most 
common  and  most  allowed  passions  ;  and  making  appro- 
bation and  disapprobation  the  tests  of  virtue  and  vice,  and 
shewing  that  those  are  founded  on  sympathy,  he  raises  from 
this  simple  truth,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  fabrics  of  moral 
theory,  that  has  perhaps  ever  appeared.  The  illustrations  are 
numerous  and  happy,  and  shew  the  author  to  be  a  man  of 

D 


50  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

uncommon  observation.  His  language  is  easy  and  spirited, 
and  puts  things  before  you  in  the  fullest  light ;  it  is  rather 
painting  than  writing." 

"Perhaps  there  is  no  ethical  work  since  Cicero's 
Offices"  wrote  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  "of  which  an 
abridgment  enables  the  reader  so  inadequately  to 
estimate  the  merit,  as  the  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments. 
This  is  not  chiefly  owing  to  the  beauty  of  diction,  as 
in  the  case  of  Cicero,  but  to  the  variety  of  explanations 
of  life  and  manners  which  embellish  the  book  often 
more  than  they  illuminate  the  theory." 

This  criticism  has  been  adopted  by  Mr.  Farrer  in  his 
luminous  account  of  Smith's  moral  philosophy,  and  its 
justice  may  be  conceded.  With  all  its  faults,  the 
Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments  is  still  one  of  the  most 
instructive  and  entertaining  of  all  our  English  treatises 
on  ethics.  There  is  plenty  of  warmth  and  colour.  The 
argument  is  never  bare ;  you  follow  its  thread  through 
a  wondrous  maze,  till  your  perplexities  are  solved, 
and  you  finally  congratulate  yourself  as  well  as  the 
author  on  having  rejected  all  the  errors  and  collected 
all  the  wisdom  of  the  ages.  When  the  main  theme 
threatens  to  be  tedious  he  entertains  you  with  an 
imaginary  portrait,  or  digresses  into  some  subsidiary 
discussion  upon  fortune,  or  fashion,  or  some  other  of 
the  currents  that  turn  men  from  their  purpose.  It 
has  been  observed  that  the  strongest  antagonists  of 
Smith's  central  doctrine  are  enthusiastic  in  praising 
his  skill  in  the  analysis  of  human  nature.  The  truth 
is,  that  the  most  absent-minded  was  also  the  most 
observant  of  men.  He  seems  to  have  watched  the 
actions  and  passions  of  his  acquaintances  with  extra- 
ordinary precision.     Motives  interested  him  at  least 


iv.]      THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS       51 

as  much  as  conduct ;  lie  rather  blames  philosophers  for 
having  of  late  years  given  too  much  attention  to  the 
tendency  of  affections,  and  too  little  to  the  relationship 
in  which  they  stand  to  their  causes. 

His  immediate  predecessors  and  contemporaries 
in  the  field  of  ethics  were  principally  concerned  with 
the  origin  and  authority  of  right  and  wrong.  Why 
does  mankind  generally  agree  as  to  what  is  right  and 
what  is  wrong;  whence  are  the  notions  of  "ought" 
and  "ought  not"  derived  if  not  from  the  church  or 
the  Bible  1  At  the  time  Smith  wrote,  English  moralists 
were  divided  upon  this  point  into  two  main  schools. 
Of  the  first,  who  derived  all  moral  rules  from  self- 
interest,  Hobbes,  Mandeville,  and  Hume  were  the 
principal  exponents.  The  second  school  sought  for  a 
less  variable  standard,  and  have  been  called  Intuition- 
alists,  because  they  believed  either  with  Clarke  and 
Price  that  moral  truths  are  perceived  like  axioms  of 
Euclid,  by  the  intellect,  or  with  Shaftesbury  and 
Hutcheson,  that  there  is  innate  in  us  a  moral  sense  or 
taste  (developed  by  Bishop  Butler  into  conscience) 
which  prompts  us  to  do  right  and  tells  us  the  difference 
between  good  and  evil. 

Moralists  were  equally  divided  upon  the  question, 
"In  what  does  virtue  consist1?"  His  old  teacher 
Hutcheson  had  answered  that  it  consisted  in  benevo- 
lence ;  others  thought  that  prudence  was  the  true  mark 
of  the  good  man.  In  Adam  Smith's  view,  prudence 
and  benevolence  are  equally  essential  ingredients  in 
the  constitution  of  a  perfectly  virtuous  character. 
With  virtue  he  associates  happiness,  and  his  individual 
view  of  both  is  based  partly  upon  the  Greek  philosophy 
of  an  independent  leisure,  partly  upon  the  Christian 


52  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

conception  of  doing  good  to  others ;  and  we  feel  that 
he  does  not  always  succeed  in  reconciling  the  new  ideal 
with  the  old.  "Happiness,"  he  says,  "consists  in 
tranquillity  and  enjoyment.  Without  tranquillity 
there  can  be  no  enjoyment."  Tranquillity,  he  thinks, 
is  "the  natural  and  usual  state  of  a  man's  mind."  But 
the  tranquillity  to  be  desired  was  as  far  removed  from 
indolence  or  apathy  as  from  avarice  or  ambition.  It 
was  the  active  tranquillity  of  a  well  furnished  mind 
and  a  benevolent  heart. 

Peace  of  mind,  family  peace,  a  country  free  from 
civil,  religious,  and  foreign  strife, — these  he  thought  in 
their  order  the  things  most  momentous  to  happiness. 
Yet  he  would  not  allow  the  leisurely  philosopher  to 
bask  in  the  selfish  sunshine  of  tranquillity.  "The 
most  sublime  contemplation  of  the  philosopher  will 
scarce  compensate  the  neglect  of  the  smallest  act  of 
virtue."  The  study  of  politics  tends  to  promote  public 
spirit,  and  political  disquisitions  are  therefore  the  most 
useful  of  all  speculations.  The  trade  of  the  vulgar 
politician  was  often  ignoble  and  deceitful;  but  the 
best  happiness  attended  the  patriotism  and  public 
spirit  of  those  who  sought  to  improve  government  and 
extend  trade.  The  leader  of  a  successful  party  may 
do  far  more  for  his  country  than  the  greatest  general. 
He  may  re-establish  and  reform  its  constitution,  and 
from  the  doubtful  and  ambiguous  character  of  a  party 
leader  he  may  assume  "the  greatest  and  noblest  of  all 
characters,  that  of  the  reformer  and  legislator  of  a 
great  state,"  who  by  the  wisdom  of  his  institutions 
secures  the  international  tranquillity  and  happiness  of 
his  fellow-citizens  for  many  succeeding  generations. 

For  the  man  of  system  in  politics  Smith  has  no 


iv.]      THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS       53 

liking.  Wise  in  his  own  conceit,  such  a  man  "  seems 
to  imagine  that  he  can  arrange  the  different  members 
of  a  great  society  with  as  much  ease  as  the  hand 
arranges  the  different  pieces  upon  a  chessboard."  He 
forgets  that  "in  the  great  chessboard  of  human 
society  every  single  piece  has  a  principle  of  motion  of 
its  own,  altogether  different  from  that  which  the  legis- 
lature might  choose  to  impress  upon  it." 

A  true  son  of  Oxford  in  his  admiration  for  Aristotle, 
he  was  fond,  as  we  have  seen,  of  appealing  to 
common  life  and  popular  opinion.  But  another  of 
Aristotle's  methods,  that  of  the  eclectic  who  arrives  at 
the  truth  by  choosing  out  and  combining  what  is  good 
in  other  philosophers,  may  almost  be  said  to  be  the 
foundation  of  The  Moral  Sentiments.  When,  after 
explaining  his  system,  he  comes  in  his  last  (seventh) 
part  to  describe  and  criticise  his  predecessors,  it  is 
apparent  that  he  considers  his  own  theory  to  be  an 
assemblage  or  reconciliation  in  one  harmonious  whole 
of  all  the  happiest  efforts  of  ethical  speculation  : — 

"  If  we  examine  the  most  celebrated  and  remarkable  of  the 
different  theories  which  have  been  given  concerning  the  nature 
and  origin  of  our  moral  sentiments,  we  shall  find  that  almost 
all  of  them  coincide  with  some  part  or  other  of  that  which  I 
have  been  endeavouring  to  give  an  account  of;  and  that  if 
everything  which  has  already  been  said  be  fully  considered, 
we  shall  be  at  no  loss  to  explain  what  was  the  view  or  aspect 
of  nature  which  led  each  particular  author  to  form  his 
particular  system.  From  some  one  or  other  of  those  principles 
which  I  have  been  endeavouring  to  unfold,  every  system  of 
morality  that  ever  had  any  reputation  in  the  world  has, 
perhaps,  ultimately  been  derived." 

A  good  example  of  this  eclecticism  is  his  treatment 
of  Mandeville,  an  author  from  whom  Smith  no  less 


54  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

than  Kousseau  derived  many  fruitful  ideas.  In 
the  first  edition  of  The  Moral  Sentiments  (p.  474)  he 
writes : — 

"There  are,  however,  some  other  systems  which  seem  to 
take  away  altogether  the  distinction  between  vice  and  virtue, 
and  of  which  the  tendency  is  upon  that  account  wholly 
pernicious  :  I  mean  the  systems  of  the  Duke  of  Rochefoucauld 
and  Dr.  Mandeville.  Though  the  notions  of  both  these 
authors  are  in  almost  every  respect  erroneous,  there  are,  how- 
ever, some  appearances  in  human  nature  which,  when  viewed 
in  a  certain  manner,  seem  at  first  sight  to  favour  them. 
These,  first  slightly  sketched  out  with  the  elegance  and  delicate 
precision  of  the  Duke  of  Rochefoucauld,  and  afterwards  more 
fully  represented  with  the  lively  and  humorous,  though 
coarse  and  rustic,  eloquence  of  Dr.  Mandeville,  have  thrown 
upon  their  doctrine  an  air  of  truth  and  probability  which  is 
very  apt  to  impose  upon  the  unskilful." 

Bishop  Butler,  more  justly,  classed  Rochefoucauld 
with  Hobbes.  But  in  Smith's  sixth  edition  (1790)  the 
name  of  Kochefoucauld  was  omitted,  at  the  instance  of 
the  Duke's  grandson,  who  pointed  out  that  the  author 
of  the  Maxims  is  not  really  in  the  same  category  with 
Mandeville.  Coarse  and  licentious,  but  entertaining 
and  ingenious,  the  author  of  the  Fable  of  the  Bees  hit 
human  nature  hard.  He  traced  virtuous  actions  to 
vanity,  and  whittled  away  the  distinction  between  vice 
and  virtue,  until  he  reached  the  paradox  that  private 
vices  are  public  benefits.  But  this  profligate  system 
could  never  have  caused  so  much  stir  and  alarm  in 
the  world  "  had  it  not  in  some  respects  bordered  upon 
the  truth."  We  are  very  easily  imposed  upon  by  the 
most  absurd  travellers'  tales  about  distant  countries. 
But  falsehoods  about  the  parish  we  live  in  must,  if 
they  are  to  deceive  us,  bear  some  resemblance  to  the 


iv.]      THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS        55 

truth,  nay,  "must  even  have  a  considerable  mixture 
of  truth  in  them."  A  natural  philosopher  has  an 
analogous  advantage  over  the  speculator  in  ethics. 
The  vortices  of  Deseartes  passed  for  nearly  a  century 
as  a  most  satisfactory  account  of  the  revolutions  of 
heavenly  bodies,  though  they  neither  existed  nor 
could  possibly  exist,  and  though  if  they  did  exist 
they  could  not  produce  such  effects  as  were  ascribed 
to  them.  But  the  moral  philosopher  is  no  better  off 
than  the  parish  liar.  He  is  giving  an  account  of 
things  that  are  constantly  before  us,  around  us,  and 
within  us.  "  Though  here,  too,  like  indolent  masters 
who  put  their  trust  in  a  steward  that  deceives  them, 
we  are  very  liable  to  be  imposed  upon,  yet  we  are 
incapable  of  passing  any  account  which  does  not 
preserve  some  little  regard  to  the  truth." 

In  describing  those  systems  which  make  virtue  consist 
in  propriety,  Smith  displays  a  profound  knowledge  of 
Plato,  Aristotle,  and  the  later  schools  of  Greek 
philosophy.  His  admiration  of  Zeno  and  Epictetus  is 
almost  unbounded,  especially  when  he  contemplates 
their  confident  opinion  that  a  man  should  always  be 
able  to  support  worldly  misfortunes.  "  They  endeavour 
to  point  out  the  comforts  which  a  man  might  still 
enjoy  when  reduced  to  poverty,  when  driven  into 
banishment,  when  exposed  to  the  injustice  of  popular 
clamour,  when  labouring  under  blindness,  deafness,  in 
the  extremity  of  old  age,  upon  the  approach  of  death." 
He  holds  that  the  few  fragments  which  have  been 
preserved  of  this  philosophy  are  among  the  most 
instructive  remains  of  antiquity.  "The  spirit  and 
manhood  of  their  doctrines  make  a  wonderful  contrast 
with  the  desponding,  plaintive,  and  whining  tone  of 


56  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

some  modern  systems."  Chrysippus,  on  the  other 
hand,  did  but  reduce  stoicism  into  a  scholastic  or 
technical  system  of  artificial  definitions,  divisions, 
and  subdivisions,  "  one  of  the  most  effectual  expedients, 
perhaps,  for  extinguishing  whatever  degree  of  good 
sense  there  may  be  in  any  moral  or  metaphysical 
system." 

Admirable  as  were  the  best  stoics  and  epicureans 
and  those  Roman  writers  who,  like  Cicero  and  Seneca, 
direct  us  to  the  imperfect  but  attainable  virtues,  they 
quite  misunderstood  nature.  "  By  nature,  the  events 
which  immediately  affect  that  little  department  in 
which  we  ourselves  have  some  little  management  and 
direction,  which  immediately  affect  ourselves,  our 
friends,  our  country,  are  the  events  which  interest  us 
the  most  and  which  chiefly  excite  our  desires  and 
aversions,  our  hopes  and  fears,  our  joys  and  sorrows." 
Here  and  in  similar  passages  he  follows  his  favourite, 
Pope : — 

"  God  loves  from  whole  to  parts  ;  but  human  soul 
Must  rise  from  individual  to  the  whole. 
Self-love  but  serves  the  virtuous  mind  to  wake, 
As  the  small  pebble  stirs  the  peaceful  lake  ; 
The  centre  mov'd,  a  circle  straight  succeeds, 
Another  still,  and  still  another  spreads ; 
Friend,  parent,  neighbour,  first  it  will  embrace  ; 
His  country  next ;  and  next  all  human  race." 

Every  moralist's,  even  Epictetus's,  description  of  virtue 
is  just  as  far  as  it  goes.  But  Smith  claims  to  have  been 
the  first  to  give  any  precise  or  distinct  measure  by 
which  the  fitness  or  propriety  of  affection  can  be  ascer- 
tained and  judged.  Such  a  measure  he  finds  in  the 
sympathetic  feelings  of  the  impartial  and  well-informed 


iv.]      THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS       57 

spectator.  Here,  then,  we  have  the  central  and  peculiar 
doctrine  that  stamps  with  originality  Adam  Smith's 
Tlieory  of  Moral  Sentiments.1 

That  sympathy  or  fellow-feeling  is  a  primary  instinct 
of  man  appears  from  the  commonest  incidents  of  life. 
Do  we  not  shrink  when  a  blow  is  aimed  at  another,  do 
not  the  spectators  wriggle  as  they  follow  a  rope-dancer's 
contortions,  are  we  not  moved  by  tears,  is  not  laughter 
infectious I  Sympathy  is  agreeable.  We  like  to  give 
it,  and  we  long  for  it.  It  is  too  instinctive  to  be 
explained  (though  some  would  do  so)  by  a  refinement  of 
self-love.  Yet  it  is  not  a  mere  reflection  or  shadow. 
Generally  speaking,  we  only  sympathise  when  our  senti- 
ments and  feelings  correspond  with  those  of  another. 
Sympathy  means  approval.  To  give  it  is  to  praise,  to 
withhold  it  to  blame.  How,  then,  does  Adam  Smith 
account  for  the  growth  of  moral  sentiments  in  the  man, 
and  for  the  progress  of  morality  in  mankind1?  He 
holds  that  what  we  call  conscience,  or  the  sense  of  duty, 
arises  from  a  certain  reflex  action  of  sympathy.  We 
apply  to  ourselves  the  moral  judgments  we  have 
learned  to  pass  on  others.  We  imagine  what  they  will 
say  and  think  about  our  own  thoughts  and  words  and 
actions.  We  try  to  look  at  ourselves  with  the  impartial 
eyes  of  other  people,  and  seek  to  anticipate  that  judg- 
ment which  they  are  likely  to  pass  upon  us.     This  is 

1  The  crude  theory  that  sympathy  is  the  foundation  of 
altruism  was  noticed  by  Hutcheson.  In  his  System  of  Moral 
Philosophy  (B.  i.  ch.  iii.)  he  writes  :  "Others  say  that  we  regard 
the  good  of  others,  or  of  societies  ...  as  the  means  of  some 
subtiler  pleasures  of  our  own  by  sympathy  with  others  in 
their  happiness."  But  this  sympathy,  he  adds,  "can  never 
account  for  all  kind  affections,  tho'  it  is  no  doubt  a  natural 
principle  and  a  beautiful  part  of  our  constitution." 


58  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

the  first  stage.  But  men  have  very  different  degrees 
of  morality  and  wisdom.  One  man's  praise  or  blame 
carries  infinitely  more  weight  than  another's.  Thus 
what  is  called  conscience,  that  is  our  idea  of  the  im- 
partial spectator,  insensibly  develops.  The  impartial 
spectator  becomes  more  and  more  our  ideal  man,  and 
we  come  to  pay  more  homage  to  his  still  small  Voice 
than  to  the  judgment  of  the  world.  The  pangs  of  con- 
science are  far  more  terrible  than  the  condemnation  of 
the  market-place.  Praiseworthiness  comes  to  be  better 
than  praise ;  blameworthiness  comes  to  be  worse  than 
blame.  The  true  hell  is  the  hell  within  the  breast; 
the  worst  tortures  are  those  that  follow  the  sentence 
of  the  impartial  spectator.  One  feature  in  the  pheno- 
mena of  sympathy,  which  Smith  points  out,  perhaps 
constitutes  a  weak  point  in  his  theory.  The  spectator's 
emotions  are  apt  to  fall  short  of  the  sufferer's.  Com- 
passion is  never  exactly  the  same  as  original  sorrow. 

Smith,  like  Kant,  has  his  own  way,  and  a  curious  one 
it  is,  of  putting  the  rule  of  Christ.  "As  to  love  our 
neighbour  as  we  love  ourselves  is  the  great  law  of 
Christianity,  so  it  is  the  great  precept  of  nature  to  love 
ourselves  only  as  we  love  our  neighbour,  or  what  comes 
to  the  same  thing,  as  our  neighbour  is  capable  of  loving 
us."  Our  philosopher  readily  admits  that  there  are 
passions,  like  love,  which,  "though  almost  unavoidable 
in  some  part  of  life,"  are  not  at  first  sight  very  agree- 
able to  his  theory.  He  says  we  cannot  enter  into  the 
eagerness  of  a  lover's  emotions.  They  are  always  "in 
some  measure  ridiculous."  "The  passion  appears  to 
everybody  but  the  man  who  feels  it  entirely  dispropor- 
tioned  to  the  value  of  the  object."  Ovid's  gaiety  and 
Horace's  gallantry  are  pleasant  enough,  but  you  grow 


iv.]      THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS       59 

weary  of  the  "  grave,  pedantic,  and  long-sentenced  love 
of  Cowley  and  Petrarca." 

Resentment  provides  him  with  a  better  illustra- 
tion. The  counterpart  of  gratitude,  it  is  a  very 
difficult  passion  to  realise  in  a  proper  degree.  "  How 
many  things,"  he  exclaims,  "are  requisite  to  render 
the  gratification  of  resentment  completely  agreeable 
and  to  make  the  spectator  thoroughly  sympathise 
with  our  revenge1?"  First,  the  provocation  must  be 
such  that  if  unresented  we  should  become  contemptible 
and  be  exposed  to  perpetual  insults.  Second,  smaller 
offences  had  better  be  neglected.  Third,  we  should 
resent  from  a  sense  of  propriety  and  of  what  is  expected 
of  us.  Above  all,  we  should  diligently  consider  what 
would  be  the  sentiments  of  the  cool  and  impartial 
spectator. 

Though  the  love  of  the  lover  has  to  be  belittled  for 
the  purpose  of  this  theory,  friendship  and  all  the  social 
and  benevolent  affections  are  dear  to  sympathy  and 
"please  the  indifferent  spectator  upon  almost  every 
occasion."  True  friendship  is  one  of  the  virtues  which 
prove  the  limitations  of  the  utilitarian  theory :  "  There 
is  a  satisfaction  in  the  consciousness  of  being  beloved 
which  to  a  person  of  delicacy  and  sensibility  is  of  more 
importance  to  happiness  than  all  the  advantage  which 
he  can  expect  to  derive  from  it." 

As  Smith  goes  through  the  list  of  virtues  and  vices 
his  "  Impartial  Spectator "  constantly  reminds  us  of 
Aristotle's  theory  that  every  virtue  is  a  mean  between 
two  extremes.  The  impartial  spectator  dislikes  excess. 
The  rise  of  the  upstart,  for  example,  is  too  sudden  an 
extreme,  nor  does  his  behaviour  often  conciliate  our 
affections : — 


60  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

"  If  the  chief  part  of  human  happiness  arises  from  the  con- 
sciousness of  being  beloved,  as  I  believe  it  does,  those  sudden 
changes  of  fortune  seldom  contribute  much  to  happiness.  He 
is  happiest  who  advances  more  gradually  to  greatness,  whom 
the  public  destines  to  every  step  of  his  preferment  long  before 
he  arrives  at  it,  in  whom,  upon  that  account,  when  it  comes,  it 
can  excite  no  extravagant  joy,  and  with  regard  to  whom  it 
cannot  reasonably  create  either  any  jealousy  in  those  he  over- 
takes or  any  envy  in  those  he  leaves  behind." 

The  Impartial  Spectator  is  rather  a  fickle  and  illogical 
person ;  he  does  not  like  unexampled  prosperity,  but  he 
is  always  ready  to  sympathise  with  trnrial  joys.  "  It  is 
quite  otherwise  with  grief.  Small  vexations  excite  no 
sympathy,  but  deep  affliction  calls  forth  the  greatest." 
It  takes  a  great  grief  to  enlist  our  sympathy,  for  "  it  is 
painful  to  go  along  with  grief,  and  we  always  enter  it 
with  reluctance."  So  when  we  hear  a  tragedy  we 
struggle  against  sympathetic  sorrow  as  long  as  we  can, 
and  when  we  finally  give  way,  carefully  conceal  our 
tears !  In  a  letter  of  July  the  28th,  1759,  from  which 
we  have  already  quoted,  Hume  made  some  objections 
to  this  part  of  Smith's  theory  : — 

"  I  am  told  that  you  are  preparing  a  new  edition,  and  pro- 
pose to  make  some  additions  and  alterations  in  order  to 
obviate  objections.  I  shall  use  the  freedom  to  propose  one ; 
which,  if  it  appears  to  be  of  any  weight,  you  may  have  in  your 
eye.  I  wish  you  had  more  particularly  and  fully  proved  that 
all  kinds  of  sympathy  are  agreeable.  This  is  the  hinge  of 
your  system,  and  yet  you  only  mention  the  matter  cursorily 
on  p.  20.  Now  it  would  appear  that  there  is  a  disagreeable 
sympathy  as  well  as  an  agreeable.  And,  indeed,  as  the 
sympathetic  passion  is  a  reflex  image  of  the  principal,  it  must 
partake  of  its  qualities,  and  be  painful  when  that  is  so.  .  .  . 

"  It  is  always  thought  a  difficult  problem  to  account  for  the 
pleasure  from  the  tears  and  grief  and  sympathy  of  tragedy, 


iv.]       THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS       61 

which  would  not  be  the  case  if  all  sympathy  was  agreeable. 
An  hospital  would  be  a  more  entertaining  place  than  a  ball. 
I  am  afraid  that  on  p.  99  and  111  this  proposition  has  escaped 
you,  or  rather  is  interwoven  with  your  reasoning.  In  that 
place  you  say  expressly,  '  It  is  painful  to  go  along  with  grief, 
and  we  always  enter  into  it  with  reluctance.'  It  will  probably 
be  requisite  for  you  to  modify  or  explain  this  sentiment,  and 
reconcile  it  to  your  system." 

In  the  following  spring  (April  4  th)  Smith  wrote 
from  Glasgow  to  Strahan,  Millar's  young  and  very- 
able  partner,  about  the  second  edition,  for  which  he 
had  sent  "a  good  many  corrections  and  improvements." 
He  asks  Strahan  to  take  care  that  the  book  is  printed 
"  pretty  exactly  according  to  the  copy  I  delivered  to 
you."  Strahan,  it  seems,  had  offered  his  services  as 
a  critic,  and  Smith  was  a  little  afraid  that  he  might 
find  unauthorised  alterations  in  the  text.  He  will  be 
much  obliged  to  his  publisher  for  suggestions,  but 
cannot  consent  to  surrender  "the  precious  right  of 
private  judgment,  for  the  sake  of  which  your  fore- 
fathers kicked  out  the  Pope  and  the  Pretender.  I 
believe  you  to  be  much  more  infallible  than  the  Pope, 
but  as  I  am  a  Protestant,  my  conscience  makes  me 
scruple  to  submit  to  any  unscriptural  authority." 

The  second  edition  was  issued  soon  afterwards.  It 
has  been  erroneously  described  as  a  reprint  of  the  first.1 

1  Mr.  Rae's  Life  of  Adam  Smith,  pp.  148-9.  Mr.  Rae  also 
says  that  it  contained  none  of  the  alterations  or  additions  that 
Hume  expected,  and  expresses  surprise  that  the  additions, 
etc.,  which  had  been  placed  in  the  printer's  hands  in  1760  were 
not  incorporated  in  the  text  until  the  publication  of  the  sixth 
edition  thirty  years  afterwards.  On  the  other  hand,  he  says 
that  the  Dissertation  on  the  Origin  of  Languages  was  added. 
But  the  Dissertation  was  first  appended  in  the  third  edition 
(1767). 


62  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  corrections  and  alterations 
made  in  it  were  very  numerous  and  it  was  set  up  in 
much  smaller  type,  so  that  the  551  pages  of  the  first 
edition  are  compressed,  in  spite  of  some  enlargements 
of  the  text,  into  436  pages.  What  is  particularly  note- 
worthy is  that  the  author,  without  altering  any  of 
the  passages  criticised  by  Hume,  does  make  what  we 
conceive  to  be  a  perfectly  satisfactory  answer  in  an 
important  footnote  on  page  76  of  the  second  edition 
after  the  sentence,  "It  is  painful  to  go  along  with 
grief,  and  we  always  enter  into  it  with  reluctance." 
We  give  the  note  in  full  in  order  that  the  reader  may 
judge  for  himself: — 

"It  has  been  objected  to  me  that  as  I  found  the  sentiment 
of  approbation,  which  is  always  agreeable,  upon  sympathy,  it 
is  inconsistent  with  my  system  to  admit  any  disagreeable 
sympathy.  I  answer,  that  in  the  sentiment  of  approbation 
there  are  two  things  to  be  taken  notice  of:  first,  the  sym- 
pathetic passion  of  the  spectator  ;  and  secondly,  the  emotion 
which  arises  from  his  observing  the  perfect  coincidence  between 
this  sympathetic  passion  in  himself,  and  the  original  passion 
in  the  person  principally  concerned.  This  last  emotion,  in 
which  the  sentiment  of  approbation  properly  consists,  is 
always  agreeable  and  delightful.  The  other  may  either  be 
agreeable  or  disagreeable,  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
original  passion,  whose  features  it  must  always,  in  some 
measure,  retain.  Two  sounds,  I  suppose,  may  each  of  them, 
taken  singly,  be  austere,  and  yet,  if  they  are  perfect  concords, 
the  perception  of  their  harmony  and  coincidence  may  be 
agreeable." 

Of  modern  philosophers,  those  to  whom  Smith  is 
most  indebted  are  certainly  Mandeville,  his  old  master 
Hutcheson,  and  his  friend  Hume,  "an  ingenious  and 
agreeable  philosopher  who  joins  the  greatest  depth  of 


iv.]      THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS       G3 

thought  to  the  greatest  elegance  of  expression,  and 
possesses  the  singular  and  happy  talent  of  treating  the 
abstrusest  subjects  not  only  with  the  most  perfect  per- 
spicuity, but  with  the  most  lively  eloquence."  (Was 
it  the  religious  prejudice  against  Hume  that  left  his 
name  unmentioned  in  the  Theory  1)  All  four  were  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree  utilitarians.  But  Smith  denies 
that  the  perception  of  a  distinction  between  virtue  and 
vice  originates  in  the  utility  of  the  one  and  the  dis- 
advantageousness  of  the  other.  Hume  would  explain 
all  virtues  by  their  usefulness  to  oneself  or  society. 
But  Smith  only  regards  utility  as  a  powerful  additional 
reason  for  approving  virtue  and  virtuous  actions.  It 
influences  our  ideas  of  virtue,  as  custom  and  fashion 
influence  our  ideas  of  beauty.  Usefulness  is  seldom 
the  first  ground  of  approval,  and  "it  seems  impossible 
that  we  should  have  no  other  reason  for  praising  a  man 
than  that  for  which  we  commend  a  chest  of  drawers." 
Even  our  approval  of  public  spirit  arises  at  first  rather 
from  a  feeling  of  its  magnificence  and  splendour  than 
of  its  utility  to  the  nation,  though  a  sense  of  utility 
greatly  strengthens  our  approval.  Adam  Smith  notes, 
by  the  way,  what  Hume  had  not  observed,  that  the  fit- 
ness of  a  thing  to  produce  its  end  is  often  more  admired 
than  the  end  itself.  Most  people  prefer  order  and 
tidiness  to  the  utility  which  they  are  intended  to 
promote. 

Buckle  has  remarked  on  a  contrast  between  Smith's 
theory  of  morals  and  his  theory  of  economics.  In 
the  first,  sympathy  is  the  premise,  and  he  works  out  the 
principle  of  sympathy  to  its  logical  conclusions.  In  the 
Wealth  of  Nations,  on  the  contrary,  the  word  sympathy 
scarcely  occurs.     He  assumes  self-interest  as  the  sole 


64  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

motive  of  the  economic  man,  and  works  out  all  the  con- 
sequences without  troubling  about  that  other-regarding 
principle  which  is  the  foundation  and  measure  of 
morality,  though  he  shows,  it  is  true,  that  the  motive 
of  self-interest,  if  sufficiently  enlightened,  will  result 
in  the  general  good.  Without  denying  that  Buckle's 
contention  is  suggestive,  we  may  observe  that  Smith 
distinctly  refuses  to  confine  virtue  to  benevolence, 
and  parts  company  on  this  very  point  from  "the 
amiable  system  "  of  Hutcheson.  "  Kegard  to  our  own 
private  happiness,  and  interest  too,  appear,"  says  he, 
"upon  many  occasions  very  laudable  principles  of 
action.  The  habits  of  economy,  industry,  discretion, 
attention,  and  application  of  thought  are  generally 
supposed  to  be  cultivated  from  self-interested  motives, , 
and  at  the  same  time  are  apprehended  to  be  very 
praiseworthy  qualities,  which  deserve  the  esteem  and 
approbation  of  everybody." l  Benevolence  may  perhaps 
be  the  sole  principle  of  action  in  the  Deity,  but  an 
imperfect  creature  like  man  must  and  ought  often  to 
act  from  other  motives. 

To  the  third  edition  of  the  Moral  Sentiments  (1767) 
was  appended  an  essay  on  the  formation  of  Languages 
and  the  different  genius  of  original  and  compounded 
languages.  It  is  the  fruit  of  his  philological  studies, 
and  contains  no  doubt  the  substance  of  lectures  that 
he  had  read  in  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow.  He  starts 
with  the  proposition  that  names  of  objects,  that  is  to 
say,  nouns  substantive,  must  have  been  the  first  steps 
toward  the  making  of  a  language.  Two  savages  who 
had  never  been  taught  to  speak  would  naturally  begin 
to  make  their  mutual  wants  intelligible  by  uttering 
1  See  Moral  Sentiments,  1st  edition,  p.  464. 


iv.]      THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS       65 

certain  sounds,  as  cave,  tree,  fountain,  whenever  they 
wanted  to  denote  particular  objects.  What  was  at 
first  a  proper  name  would  thus  be  extended  to  similar 
objects,  by  the  same  law  which  leads  us  to  call  a  great 
philosopher  a  Newton.  Similarly,  "  a  child  that  is  just 
learning  to  speak  calls  every  person  who  comes  into 
the  house  its  papa  or  its  mamma."  Smith  could  call 
to  mind  a  clown  "who  did  not  know  the  proper 
name  of  the  river  which  ran  by  his  own  door." 
It  was  "the  river."  This  process  of  generalisation 
explains  the  formation  of  those  classes  and  assort- 
ments called  genera  and  species  in  the  schools,  "of 
which  the  ingenious  and  eloquent  M.  Rousseau  of 
Geneva  finds  himself  so  much  at  a  loss  to  account  for 
the  origin."1  In  his  account  of  the  dual  number, 
which  he  finds  in  all  primitive  and  uncompounded 
languages,  he  says  that  in  the  rude  beginnings  of 
society,  one,  two,  and  mare,  might  possibly  be  all  the 
numerical  distinctions  which  mankind  would  have  any 
occasion  to  take  notice  of.  But  these  words,  though 
custom  has  rendered  them  familiar  to  us,  "express 
perhaps  the  most  subtle  and  refined  abstractions 
which  the  mind  of  man  is  capable  of  forming."  His 
purpose  through  all  this  ingenious  train  of  reasoning 
was  to  suggest  a  new  mode  of  approaching  a  subject 
which,  in  itself  so  fascinating,  had  been  reduced  to  a 
dull  routine.  He  is  very  severe  on  the  Minerva  of 
Sanctius  and  on  some  other  grammarians  who,  neglect- 
ing the  progress  of  nature,  had  expended  all  their 
industry  in  drawing  up  a  number  of  artificial  rules  so  as 

1  Origine  de  Vinigaliti.  Parlie  premiere,  pp.  376,  377. 
Edition  d' Amsterdam  des  ceuvres  diverges  de  J.  J.  Rousseau. 
The  reference  iafrom  Moral  Sentiments,  3rd  ed.  p.  440. 

£ 


66  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

to  exclude  exceptions.  He  sees  that  languages  are  the 
products  not  of  art  but  of  nature  or  circumstance.  He 
explains  how  the  modern  dialects  of  Europe  arose  from 
conquest,  migration,  and  mixture — through  Lombards 
trying  to  speak  Latin,  or  Normans  trying  to  speak 
Saxon.  In  this  way  the  older  tongues  were  decom- 
posed and  simplified  in  their  rudiments  while  they 
grew  more  complex  in  composition.  The  processes 
of  linguistic  development  provoke  a  comparison  of 
philology  with  mechanics  : — 

"  All  machines  are  generally,  when  first  invented,  extremely 
complex  in  their  principles,  and  there  is  often  a  particular 
principle  of  motion  for  every  particular  movement  which,  it  is 
intended,  they  should  perform.  Succeeding  improvers  observe, 
that  one  principle  may  be  so  applied  as  to  produce  several  of 
those  movements,  and  thus  the  machine  becomes  gradually 
more  and  more  simple,  and  produces  its  effects  with  fewer 
wheels,  and  fewer  principles  of  motion.  In  Language,  in  the 
same  manner,  every  case  of  every  noun,  and  every  tense  of 
every  verb,  was  originally  expressed  by  a  particular  distinct 
word,  which  served  for  this  purpose  and  for  no  other.  But 
succeeding  observation  discovered  that  one  set  of  words  was 
capable  of  supplying  the  place  of  all  that  infinite  number,  and 
that  four  or  five  prepositions,  and  half  a  dozen  auxiliary  verbs, 
were  capable  of  answering  the  end  of  all  the  declensions,  and 
of  all  the  conjugations  in  the  antient  Languages." 

The  comparison,  however,  suggests  a  contrast.  The 
simplification  of  machines  renders  them  more  perfect, 
but  the  simplification  of  languages  renders  them  more 
and  more  imperfect,  and  less  proper  (in  his  opinion) 
for  many  of  the  purposes  of  expression.  Thus  in  a 
decomposed  and  simple  language,  he  observes,  we  are 
often  restrained  from  disposing  words  and  sounds  in 
the  most  agreeable  order.  When  Virgil  writes 
"  Tityre  tu  patulae  recubans  sub  tegmine  fagi," 


iv.]      THE  THEORY  OF  MORAL  SENTIMENTS       67 

we  can  easily  see  that  tu  refers  to  recubans,  and 
patulae  to  fagi,  though  the  related  words  are  separated 
from  one  another  by  the  intervention  of  several  others. 
But  if  we  translate  the  line  literally  into  English, 
Tityrus,  thou  of  spreading  reclining  under  the  shade  leech, 
(Edipus  himself  could  not  make  sense  of  it,  because 
there  is  no  difference  in  termination  to  assist  us  in 
tracking  out  the  meaning.  In  the  same  way  Milton's 
exquisite  translation  of  Horace,  "  Who  now  enjoys  thee, 
credulous  all  gold,"  etc.,  can  only  be  interpreted  by 
aid  of  the  original.  We  may  dissent  when  he  goes  on 
to  denounce  "  the  prolixness,  constraint,  and  monotony 
of  modern  languages."  Yet  it  would  be  as  unfair  to 
estimate  the  scientific  value  of  these  speculations  by 
the  accumulated  achievements  of  modern  philologists, 
as  to  sneer  at  his  essay  on  the  Imitative  Arts  or  at 
Burke's  treatise  on  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful,  because 
Lessing  has  helped  inferior  men  to  see  so  much 
further. 


CHAPTER    V 

IN  THE  GLASGOW  CHAIR — THE  LECTURES  ON 
JUSTICE  AND  POLICE 

The  finding  of  Adam  Smith's  lectures  on  Justice, 
Police,  Revenue,  and  Arms,  133  years  at  least  after 
their  last  delivery  and  105  years  after  the  author 
had  had  his  own  folio  notes  of  them  destroyed,  is 
not  only  one  of  the  curiosities  of  literature,  it  is  also 
the  most  important  aid  that  has  been  afforded  to  the 
study  of  Smith's  economic,  social,  and  juristic  ideas 
since  the  appearance  in  1793  of  Dugald  Stewart's 
biographical  sketch.  From  1793  to  1896,  hundreds 
of  German  students  big  with  their  epoch-making  theses 
"  iiber  Smiths  Entwicklung,"  scores  of  Frenchmen  eager 
to  prove  the  superiority  of  Quesnai  and  Turgot,  and 
perhaps  half  a  dozen  English  critics  had  whetted  their 
ingenuity  on  a  brief  account  of  the  Glasgow  lectures 
which  was  supplied  to  Dugald  Stewart  by  Adam 
Smith's  old  pupil  and  friend,  John  Millar.  Accord- 
ing to  Millar,  Smith's  course,  while  he  occupied  the 
chair  of  Moral  Philosophy  at  Glasgow,  fell  into  four 
parts,  the  first  two  of  which  consisted,  as  we  have 
seen,  of  Natural  Theology  and  Ethics.  In  the 
third  part  he  treated  at  more  length  of  that  branch 
of  morality  which  relates  to  justice.  Here  he  followed 
the  plan   suggested  by  Montesquieu,   "  endeavouring 

68 


ch.v.]THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE     69 

to  trace  the  gradual  progress  of  jurisprudence,  both 
public  and  private,  from  the  rudest  to  the  most  refined 
ages."  This  important  branch  of  his  labours  he  also 
intended  to  give  to  the  public,  but  he  did  not  live  to 
fulfil  his  intention. 

In  the  last  part  of  his  lectures  he  examined  those 
political  regulations  which  are  founded  not  upon  justice, 
but  expediency,  and  considered  the  political  institutions 
relating  to  commerce,  to  finance,  to  ecclesiastical  and 
military  establishments.  "  What  he  delivered  on  these 
subjects  contained  the  substance  of  the  work  he  after- 
wards published  under  the  title  of  An  Inquiry  into  the 
Nature  and  Causes  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations." 

This  was  all  that  the  world  knew  of  Adam  Smith's 
lectures  on  jurisprudence  and  political  economy,  save 
that  at  the  end  of  his  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments  he 
promised  "  another  discourse  "  dealing  with  the  general 
principles  of  law  and  government,  and  with  the  different 
revolutions  they  have  undergone  in  the  different  ages 
and  periods  of  society,  "not  only  in  what  concerns 
justice,  but  in  what  concerns  police,  revenue,  and  arms, 
and  whatever  else  in  the  subject  of  law."  On  the  first 
section  of  his  lectures  Adam  Smith  never  even  promised 
a  book.  He  had  no  ambition  to  bring  the  kirk  about 
his  ears.  The  second  section  took  shape,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  the  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments,  after  the  publica- 
tion of  which  in  1759  the  plan  of  the  lectures  under- 
went a  change,  the  ethical  part  being  compressed  and 
the  economical  part  extended.  The  Wealth  of  Nations 
covers  the  subject  of  police,  revenue,  and  arms,  and  so 
executes  the  promise  in  part.  "What  remains,"  he 
wrote  in  1790,  "the  theory  of  Jurisprudence,  which  I 
have  long  projected,  I  have  hitherto  been  hindered 


70  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

from  executing."  In  the  lectures  now  discovered  and 
published  we  have  therefore  a  first  draft  of  the  Wealth 
of  Nations  and  also  a  first  draft  of  the  projected  work 
on  Justice,  or  Jurisprudence,  "a  sort  of  theory  and 
history  of  law  and  government, "  as  he  called  it  in  a 
letter  of  1785. 

How,  then,  comes  it  to  pass  that  we  possess  these 
legal  and  economic  lectures  just  as  Smith  delivered 
them  to  his  class  at  Glasgow,  in  spite  of  Dugald 
Stewart's  express  statement  that  no  part  of  them  had 
been  preserved  "  excepting  what  he  himself  published 
in  the  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments  and  in  The  Wealth  of 
Nations  "  ? 

When  Smith  left  Glasgow  in  1764  his  fame  stood 
high,  and  probably  there  were  many  note-books 
containing  his  lectures  floating  about  in  the  college. 
A  good  manuscript  of  useful  lectures  would  pass  from 
one  student  to  another  and  might  from  time  to  time 
be  found  on  a  bookstall.  In  the  session  of  1762-3,  or 
possibly  of  the  previous  year,  an  intelligent  and  atten- 
tive student  took  down  Smith's  lectures  with  unusual 
accuracy.  At  least  one  copy  was  taken  of  it  after 
Smith  had  left  the  University  j  for  the  manuscript  so 
happily  preserved  is  dated  1766,  is  clear,  well  written, 
and  free  from  abbreviations,  while  some  of  the  mistakes 
are  evidently  misreadings  and  not  mishearings.  That 
this  fair  copy  was  not  made  by  the  student  who  took 
the  original  notes  is  further  shown,  says  the  editor, 
"by  the  fact  that,  though  the  original  note-taker 
must  have  been  able  and  intelligent,  the  transcription 
is  evidently  the  work  of  a  person  who  often  did  not 
understand  what  he  was  writing." 

The  manuscript  consists  of  192  leaves  octavo  size, 


v.]      THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE      71 

bound  in  calf,  with  the  signature  of  "J.  A.  Maconochie, 
1811,"  on  the  front  cover.  This  Maconochie,  or  per- 
haps his  father  Allan,  the  first  Lord  Meadowbank, 
who  was  appointed  professor  of  Public  Law  at  Edin- 
burgh in  1779,  must  have  picked  up  the  book,  and  it 
has  remained  in  the  possession  of  the  family  ever 
since.  In  1876  Mr.  Charles  0.  Maconochie  rescued 
it  from  a  garret-room,  and  in  1895  happened  to 
mention  it  to  Mr.  Edwin  Cannan,  who  thereupon 
undertook  the  task  of  editing  it  for  the  press — a  task 
which  he  has  performed  to  perfection.  One  result  of 
this  lucky  discovery  is  to  dispose  of  the  legend  that 
Adam  Smith  was  little  more  than  a  borrower  from  the 
French  school,  a  mere  reflector  of  the  Reflexions  of 
Turgot.  By  examining  the  lectures  we  shall  inform 
ourselves  in  the  political  wisdom  which  Adam  Smith 
used  to  teach  his  fortunate  class  at  Glasgow  long  years 
before  he  met  Quesnai  or  Turgot,  and  longer  still 
before  the  Eeflexions  began  to  appear  in  the  £ph6m6rides 
du  Citoyen. 

"  Jurisprudence  "  was  the  title  Adam  Smith  gave  to 
this  course  of  lectures,  and  he  divided  it  under  four 
heads  :  Justice,  Police,  Revenue,  and  Arms,  taken  in 
the  order  named.  Natural  Jurisprudence,  he  begins, 
is  the  science  that  inquires  into  the  general  principles 
which  ought  to  be  the  foundation  of  the  laws  of  all 
nations.  It  is,  he  says  elsewhere  in  his  Theory  of  Moral 
Sentiments,  "  of  all  sciences  by  far  the  most  important, 
but  hitherto  perhaps  the  least  cultivated."  Grotius's 
treatise  on  the  Laws  of  War  and  Peace — "a  sort  of 
casuistical  book  for  sovereigns  and  states" — was  still, 
he  thought,  the  most  complete  work  on  this  subject. 
After  Grotius  came  Hobbes,  who,  from  an  utter  abhor- 


72  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

rence  of  ecclesiasticism  and  bigotry,  sought  to  establish 
a  system  of  morals  by  which  men's  consciences  might 
be  subjected  to  the  civil  power.  Then  after  a  few 
words  on  Puffendorf  and  Cocceii,  Adam  Smith  explained 
his  own  classification  as  follows  : — 

"  Jurisprudence  is  the  theory  of  the  general  principles  of 
law  and  government.  The  four  great  objects  of  law  are 
justice,  police,  revenue,  and  arms. 

"  The  object  of  justice  is  the  security  from  injury,  and  it  is 
the  foundation  of  civil  government. 

"  The  objects  of  police  are  the  cheapness  of  commodities, 
public  security  and  cleanliness,  if  the  two  last  were  not  too 
minute  for  a  lecture  of  this  kind.  Under  this  head  we  will 
consider  the  opulence  of  a  state. 

"For  defraying  the  expenses  of  government,  some  fund 
must  be  raised.  Hence  the  origin  of  revenue.  ...  In  general, 
whatever  revenue  can  be  raised  most  insensibly  from  the 
people  ought  to  be  preferred  ;  and  in  the  sequel  it  is  proposed 
to  be  shown,  how  far  the  laws  of  Britain  and  of  other 
European  nations  are  calculated  for  this  purpose. 

"  As  the  best  police  cannot  give  security  unless  the  govern- 
ment can  defend  themselves  from  foreign  attacks,  the  fourth 
thing  appointed  by  law  is  for  this  purpose  ;  and  under  this 
head  will  be  shown  the  different  species  of  arms,  the  con- 
stitution of  standing  armies,  militias,  etc. 

M  After  these  will  be  considered  the  laws  of  nations." 

Having  thus  divided  his  whole  course,  Adam  Smith 
proceeded  further  in  an  introductory  lecture  to  sub- 
divide his  first  part,  Justice.  The  end  of  justice  is  to 
secure  from  injury ;  and  a  man  may  be  injured  as  a 
member  of  a  state,  as  a  private  individual  (in  his 
body,  reputation,  or  property),  or  as  a  member  of  a 
family.  Adam  Smith  therefore  treats  of  justice  under 
the  three  heads  of  Public  Jurisprudence,  Domestic 
Law,   and  Private  Law.     Many  of  his  juristic  ideas 


v.]      THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE       73 

are  evidently  derived  from  Grotius,  Locke,  Montes- 
quieu, Hutcheson,  and  Hume  ;  but  the  effect  produced 
is  that  of  a  powerful  and  original  thinker  in  close  touch 
with  the  best  minds  of  his  day,  who  draws  his  illustra- 
tions freely  and  easily  alike  from  ancient  and  modern 
history.  He  finds  that  men  were  induced  to  enter 
civil  society  by  two  principles,  authority  and  utility, 
that  is  to  say,  by  the  instinct  of  obedience  and  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation. 

"In  a  monarchy  the  principle  of  authority  prevails,  and 
in  a  democracy  that  of  utility.  In  Britain,  which  is  a 
mixed  government,  the  factions  formed  some  time  ago,  under 
the  names  of  Whig  and  Tory,  were  influenced  by  these 
principles ;  the  former  submitted  to  government  on  account 
of  its  utility  and  the  advantages  they  derived  from  it,  while 
the  latter  pretended  that  it  was  of  divine  institution,  and  to 
offend  against  it  was  equally  criminal,  as  for  a  child  to  rebel 
against  its  parent.  Men  in  general  follow  these  principles 
according  to  their  natural  dispositions.  In  a  man  of  a  bold, 
daring,  and  bustling  turn  the  principle  of  utility  is  predomi- 
nant, and  a  peaceable,  easy  turn  of  mind  usually  is  pleased 
with  a  tame  submission  to  superiority." 

In  the  same  chair  Hutcheson  had  taught  that  society 
is  founded  on  an  original  contract.  Adam  Smith 
discards  the  theory  for  various  reasons : — 

"  In  the  first  place,  the  doctrine  of  an  original  contract  is 
peculiar  to  Great  Britain,  yet  government  takes  place  where 
it  was  never  thought  of,  which  is  even  the  case  with  the 
greater  part  of  people  in  this  country.  Ask  a  common  porter 
or  day-labourer  why  he  obeys  the  civil  magistrate,  he  will  tell 
you  that  it  is  right  to  do  so,  that  he  sees  others  do  it,  that  he 
would  be  punished  if  he  refused  to  do  it,  or  perhaps  it  is  a  sin 
against  God  not  to  do  it.  But  you  never  hear  him  mention 
a  contract  as  the  foundation  of  his  obedience." 


74  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Smith  was  as  fond  as  his  master  Aristotle  of  test- 
ing fine-spun  theories  by  the  coarse  wear  of  daily 
life.  He  loved  to  march  an  army  of  common-folk 
through  the  cobwebs  of  political  philosophy.  A  second 
objection  was  that,  although  a  government  may  be 
entrusted  to  certain  persons  on  certain  conditions,  the 
contract  cannot  bind  their  posterity.  "  It  may  indeed 
be  said  that  by  remaining  in  the  country  you  tacitly 
consent  to  the  contract,  and  are  bound  by  it.  But  how 
can  you  avoid  staying  in  it  1  You  were  not  consulted 
whether  you  should  be  born  in  it  or  not.  And  how 
can  you  get  out  of  it1  Most  people  know  no  other 
language  nor  country,  are  poor,  and  obliged  to  stay 
not  far  from  the  place  where  they  were  born,  to  labour 
for  a  subsistence.  They  cannot  therefore  be  said  to 
give  any  consent  to  a  contract,  though  they  may  have 
the  strongest  sense  of  obedience." 

In  a  remarkable  book  on  English  Government  (1803), 
John  Millar  expresses  his  indebtedness  to  the  "in- 
genious and  profound  author  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations." 
"  I  am  happy,"  he  says,  "  to  acknowledge  the  obliga- 
tions I  feel  myself  under  to  this  illustrious  philosopher 
by  having  at  an  early  period  of  life  had  the  benefit  of 
hearing  his  lectures  on  the  History  of  Civil  Society, 
and  of  enjoying  his  unreserved  conversation  on  the 
same  subject." x  And  this  indeed  was  the  spacious  topic 
which  occupied  most  of  the  course  on  public  juris- 
prudence. Nations  of  hunters  and  fishers,  he  began, 
had  properly  no  government  at  all.  They  lived 
according  to  the  laws  of  nature.     Then  he  came  to 

1  Millar  adds:  "The  great  Montesquieu  pointed  out  the 
road.  He  wa3  the  Lord  Bacon  in  this  branch  of  philosophy. 
Dr.  Smith  is  the  Newton." 


v.]      THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE       75 

the  patriarchs  of  the  Old  Testament  and  of  the 
Homeric  age,  and  compared  the  growth  of  republican 
government  in  Greece,  Rome,  and  modern  Italy.  How 
liberty  was  lost  is  the  next  theme.  The  students  were 
reminded  of  Csesar  and  Cromwell,  of  the  contrast 
between  Western  and  Oriental  despotisms,  of  the  im- 
provements in  law  which  have  often  been  introduced 
by  military  conquerors.  They  were  then  led  to  see 
by  the  history  of  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  how 
"military  monarchy  came  to  share  that  fated  dissolu- 
tion that  awaits  every  state  and  constitution."  After 
describing  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  Smith  gave 
an  account  of  the  origin  of  the  modern  governments 
of  Europe. 

Smith  had  Burke's  "salutary  prejudice."  Despite  a 
private  partiality  for  republican  institutions,  he  saw, 
like  Montesquieu,  in  our  constitution  "a  happy  mix- 
ture of  all  the  different  forms  of  government  properly 
restrained,  and  a  perfect  security  to  liberty  and  pro- 
perty." The  Commons  in  a  great  measure  manage  all 
public  affairs,  as  no  money-bill  can  take  its  rise  except 
in  that  House.  The  judges  are  quite  independent  of 
the  king.  The  Habeas  Corpus  Act  and  the  methods  of 
election  are  further  securities  of  liberty.  Lastly,  "  the 
law  of  England,  always  the  friend  of  liberty,  deserves 
praise  in  no  instance  more  than  in  the  careful  provision 
of  impartial  juries." 

The  first  division  of  Justice  concludes  with  an 
excellent  description  of  the  struggle  between  the  English 
nation  and  King  James  n.,  who  "on  account  of  his 
encroachments  on  the  body  politic  was  with  all  justice 
and  equity  in  the  world  opposed  and  rejected." 

In  the  second  division  of  Justice,  called  Domestic 


76  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Law,  he  examined  the  legal  relations  that  had  sub- 
sisted at  different  times  and  in  different  countries 
between  husband  and  wife,  parent  and  child,  master 
and  servant,  guardian  and  ward.  The  treatment  is  con- 
cise without  being  dry.  Philosophy  corrects  curiosity ; 
humanity  peeps  through  law,  and  humour  spices 
humanity.  We  come  upon  his  favourite  proposition 
that  "love,  which  was  formerly  a  ridiculous  passion," 
has  become  "grave  and  respectable,"  the  proof  being 
that  love  now  influences  all  public  entertainments, 
whereas  no  ancient  tragedy  turned  upon  it.  He 
counters  Montesquieu's  statement  that  at  Bantam,  in 
the  East  Indies,  there  are  ten  women  born  for  one 
man,  by  a  broad  doctrine :  If  the  laws  of  nature  are 
the  same  everywhere,  the  laws  of  gravity  and  attrac- 
tion the  same ;  why  not  the  laws  of  generation  1 
He  reminds  his  class  that  slavery  is  still  "almost 
universal " ;  for  a  small  part  of  Western  Europe  is 
"the  only  portion  of  the  globe  that  is  free  from  it." 
Upon  the  evils  of  slavery  he  spoke  as  strongly  as  he 
wrote  before  in  the  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments  or  after- 
wards in  the  Wealth  of  Nations  (Book  I.  chap.  viii.). 
It  is  almost  needless,  he  says,  to  prove  that  slavery  is 
a  bad  institution.  "A  free  man  keeps  as  his  own 
whatever  is  above  his  rent,  and  therefore  has  a  motive 
to  industry.  Our  colonies  would  be  much  better 
cultivated  by  free  men."  That  slavery  is  a  disadvan- 
tage appears,  he  adds,  from  the  state  of  colliers  and 
salters  in  Scotland.  These  poor  wretches  indeed, 
whom  he  must  have  seen  daily  in  Kirkcaldy  (where 
Pennant  noticed  them  with  indignation  thirty  years 
afterwards),  had  some  privileges  which  slaves  had  not. 
Their  property  after  maintenance  was  their  own,  and 


v.]      THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE       77 

they  could  only  be  sold  with  their  work.  They  were 
allowed  to  marry  and  to  choose  their  religion,  and 
their  wages  were  half  a  crown  a  day,  as  compared  with 
the  sixpence  or  eightpence  earned  by  the  ordinary  day- 
labourers  in  the  neighbourhood.  Nevertheless  "colliers 
often  leave  our  coal-works"  and  run  away  to  New- 
castle, preferring  liberty  on  tenpence  or  a  shilling  a 
day  to  slavery  on  half  a  crown. 

The  third  division  (nearly  fifty  pages  in  all),  on 
Private  Law,  summarises  the  Roman  law  of  property, 
and  compares  the  usages  of  Scotland  and  England. 
Smith  had  evidently  consulted  many  law  reports  and 
statutes  as  well  as  some  of  the  standard  authorities 
in  both  kingdoms,  such  as  Lord  Karnes's  Law  Tracts, 
Dalrymple's  Feudal  Property,  Bacon's  New  Abridgment 
of  the  Law,  and  Hawkins's  Pleas  of  the  Crown.  Smith 
was  wonderfully  free  from  legal  obsessions.  He  con- 
demned the  excessive  punishments  of  his  time,  and 
explained  that  they  were  founded  not  upon  regard  to 
public  utility,  but  upon  the  spectator's  resentment 
against  the  offender  and  his  sympathy  with  the  injured 
party.  The  English  laws  of  real  property  he  regarded 
as  unnatural  and  mischievous.  He  had  mastered  the 
theory  of  entail  without  being  fascinated  by  it.  "  Upon 
the  whole,  nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  per- 
petual entails.  Piety  to  the  dead  can  only  take  place 
when  their  memory  is  fresh  in  the  minds  of  men; 
a  power  to  dispose  of  estates  for  ever  is  manifestly 
absurd.  The  earth  and  the  fulness  of  it  belongs  to 
every  generation,  and  the  preceding  one  can  have  no 
right  to  bind  it  up  from  posterity ;  such  extension  of 
property  is  quite  unnatural." 

A  similar  but  less  pithy  condemnation  appears  in 


78  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

the  Wealth  of  Nations,  and  was  one  of  the  passages 
which  led  Cobden  to  declare  shortly  before  his  death 
that  if  he  were  a  young  man  he  would  take  Adam 
Smith  in  hand,  and  preach  free  trade  in  land  as  he 
had  formerly  preached  free  trade  in  corn. 

Having  considered  "man  as  a  member  of  a  state, 
as  a  member  of  a  family,  and  as  a  man,"  Smith 
turned  to  Police,  which  is  "the  second  general  division 
of  Jurisprudence."  At  that  time  the  word  "police" 
was  only  half-way  on  its  voyage  from  Greece.  It 
"properly  signified  the  policy  of  civil  government, 
but  now  it  only  means  the  regulation  of  the  inferior 
parts  of  government,  viz.  cleanliness,  security,  and 
cheapness  or  plenty."  "  Cleanliness,"  ninety  years 
before  the  first  Public  Health  Act,  was  only  "  the 
proper  method  of  carrying  dirt  from  the  street," 
while  the  term  "  security  "  exactly  corresponded  with 
police  in  the  modern  sense,  being  defined  by  Adam 
Smith  as  "the  execution  of  justice,  so  far  as  it  regards 
regulations  for  preventing  crimes  or  the  method  of 
keeping  a  city  guard." 

But  cleanliness  and  security,  "though  useful,"  were 
"  too  mean  to  be  considered  in  a  general  discourse  "  of 
the  kind  which  Adam  Smith  was  delivering.  Accord- 
ingly, after  briefly  comparing  the  amount  of  crime 
then  prevalent  in  Paris,  London,  Edinburgh,  and 
Glasgow — a  comparison  favourable  to  Glasgow  and 
London — and  inferring  that  the  establishment  of 
commerce  and  manufactures  is  the  best  police  for 
preventing  crimes,  he  passes  to  the  consideration  of 
cheapness  or  plenty — "  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  the 
most  proper  way  of  procuring  wealth  and  abundance." 
Then  follows  in  a  hundred  pages  what  Mr.  Cannan  has 


v.]      THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE       79 

well  called  a  rough  draft  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations, 
containing  (with  some  noteworthy  exceptions)  the 
main  arguments  and  many  of  the  illustrations  which 
appeared  a  dozen  or  more  years  later  in  the  book. 
By  the  student  who  would  trace  the  growth  of  an 
idea  and  the  history  of  a  theory  the  value  of  the 
report  can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  In  Mr.  Cannan's 
words,  "  it  enables  us  to  follow  the  gradual  construc- 
tion of  the  work  from  its  very  foundation,  and  to  distin- 
guish positively  between  what  the  original  genius  of  its 
author  created  out  of  British  materials  on  the  one  hand, 
and  French  materials  on  the  other." 

When  we  consider  that  this  course  of  political 
economy  was  necessarily  brief,  and  could  not  possibly 
contain  all  the  arguments  and  illustrations  he  had 
already  hammered  out  in  the  great  workshop  of  his 
mind,  we  are  inclined  to  wonder  not  that  the  lectures, 
when  compared  with  the  full  body  of  doctrine,  show 
many  gaps,  but  rather  that  they  correspond  so 
closely  with  the  final  treatise  evolved  after  twelve  or 
fourteen  years  more  of  meditation,  study,  and  travel. 
When  we  reach  the  crowning  year  of  Adam  Smith's 
life  with  its  laureate  wreath  we  shall  have  something 
to  say  upon  later  accretions,  such  as  his  colonial 
policy,  his  view  of  expenditure,  and  that  intensely 
practical  theory  of  taxation  which  taught  so  many 
wholesome  lessons  to  contemporary  and  succeeding 
statesmen.  Oddly  enough,  the  lecturer  began  by 
supplying  the  very  thing  his  critics  have  missed  in  the 
Wealth  of  Nations — a  theory  of  consumption.  He 
had  therefore,  if  we  combine  the  lectures  with  the 
treatise,  mapped  out  in  his  mind  the  entire  scope  of 
economic  science  in  its  natural  order.     First  there  is 


80  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

the  demand  that  leads  to  productive  labour,  the  desire 
which  is  satisfied  by  and  therefore  induces  toil. 
Then  comes  his  central  theme,  the  division  of  labour 
and  the  subsidiary  topic  of  its  distribution  (almost 
ignored  in  the  lectures),  with  an  appendix  on  revenue 
or  taxation. 

Looking  now  only  at  the  lectures,  we  find  that  of 
the  hundred  pages  into  which  this  first  discourse  on 
the  Wealth  of  Nations  falls,  eighty,  or  four-fifths,  are 
concerned  with  "cheapness  or  plenty,"  in  other  words, 
with  "the  most  proper  way  of  procuring  wealth  or 
abundance."  Cheapness  is  synonymous  with  plenty, 
as  dearness  is  synonymous  with  dearth.  Water  is 
only  cheap  because  it  is  plentiful,  diamonds  are  costly 
only  because  they  are  scarce.  If  we  wish  to  find 
wherein  opulence  consists,  we  must  first  consider  what 
are  the  natural  wants  of  mankind  which  are  to  be 
supplied ;  "  and  if  we  differ  from  common  opinions,  we 
shall  at  least  give  the  reasons  for  our  nonconformity." 
So  he  sets  about  his  task  with  a  theory  of  consump- 
tion simple,  intelligible,  and  adequate.  Food,  clothes, 
and  lodgings  are  the  threefold  necessities  of  animal 
life.  But  most  animals  find  these  wants  sufficiently 
provided  by  nature.  Man  alone  has  so  delicate  a  con- 
stitution that  no  object  is  produced  to  his  liking.  So 
he  improves  his  food  by  cookery,  and  protects  himself 
by  fire,  clothes,  and  huts  from  the  inclemency  of  the 
weather. 

But  as  man's  physical  delicacy  requires  much  more 
provision  than  that  of  any  other  animal,  so  does  the 
same,  or  rather  the  much  greater,  delicacy  of  his  mind. 
Such  is  the  nicety  of  his  taste,  that  the  very  colour  of 
an  object  hurts  or  pleases.     He  is  tired  by  uniformity, 


v.]      THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE       81 

and  loves  variety  and  change.  The  Indians  gladly 
barter  gems  for  the  cheap  toys  of  Europe.  Thus 
besides  the  threefold  necessities  of  life  a  multitude 
of  wants  and  demands  spring  up  to  which  agriculture, 
manufactures,  arts,  commerce,  and  navigation  are  sub- 
servient ;  while  the  establishment  of  law  and  govern- 
ment, "the  highest  effort  of  human  prudence  and 
wisdom,"  enables  the  different  arts  to  flourish  in  peace 
and  security. 

Thus  Smith  arrives  at  the  point  from  which  the 
Wealth  of  Nations  was  to  start.  In  an  uncivilised  nation, 
where  labour  is  undivided,  the  natural  wants  of  mankind 
are  provided  for.  But  as  civilisation  advances  with 
the  division  of  labour,  the  provision  becomes  more 
liberal,  so  that  "a  common  day-labourer  in  Britain  has 
more  luxury  in  his  way  of  living  than  an  Indian 
sovereign."  The  labourer's  comfort,  indeed,  is  nothing 
to  that  of  the  noble.  Yet  a  European  prince  does  not 
so  far  exceed  a  commoner  as  the  latter  does  the  chief  of 
a  savage  nation.  "In  a  savage  nation,"  he  added,  with 
a  prophetic  glance  at  Marx,  "every  one  enjoys  the 
whole  fruit  of  his  own  labour."  It  is  therefore  the 
Division  of  Labour  that  increases  the  opulence  of  a 
country.  This  is  the  kernel  of  political  economy,  the 
inner  keep  round  which  this  great  architect  of  a  new 
science  has  built  a  fortress  strong  enough  to  protect 
society  and  to  preserve  the  fruit  of  men's  toil  from  the 
well-meaning  unwisdom  of  their  governments.  Not 
that  Smith  was  insensible  to  the  hardness  of  economic 
laws,  to  the  cruel  inequalities  of  industry  : — 

"In   a  civilised  society,"  he  reminds  his  class,   "though 

there  ia  a  division  of  labour,   there   is  no   equal  division, 

for  there  are   a  good  many  who  work  none   at  all.     The 

F 


82  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

division  of  opulence  is  not  according  to  the  work.  The  opu- 
lence of  the  merchant  is  greater  than  that  of  all  his  clerks, 
though  he  works  less  ;  and  they  again  have  six  times  more 
than  an  equal  number  of  artisans  "who  are  more  employed. 
The  artisan  who  works  at  his  ease  within-doors  has  far  more 
than  the  poor  labourer  who  trudges  up  and  down  without 
intermission.  Thus,  he  who,  as  it  were,  bears  the  burden  of 
society,  has  the  fewest  advantages." 

Division  of  labour  multiplies  the  product  of  labour 
and  so  creates  opulence.  He  takes  a  pin  manufactory 
as  an  illustration.  If  one  man  made  all  the  parts 
of  a  pin  it  would  take  him  a  year,  and  the  pin 
would  cost  at  least  six  pounds.  By  dividing  the  pro- 
cess of  manufacture  into  eighteen  operations,  each  man 
employed  can  make  2000  pins  a  day.  When  labour  is 
thus  divided,  a  much  larger  surplus  is  left  over  and 
above  the  labourer's  maintenance,  and  of  this  surplus 
the  labourer  will  get  a  share.  "The  commodity 
becomes  far  cheaper  and  the  labour  dearer."  The  less 
the  labour  that  can  procure  abundance,  the  greater  the 
opulence  of  society.  But  coin  is  not  a  safe  criterion 
of  wages.  Twopence  in  China  will  buy  more  than  five 
shillings  in  the  sugar  colonies.  By  dividing  labour  you 
increase  dexterity.  A  boy  nailmaker  will  easily  make 
2000  good  nails  while  a  country  smith  unaccustomed 
to  the  job  is  making  400  bad  ones.  You  also  save 
time  j  for  time  is  always  lost  in  going  from  one  kind 
of  work  to  another.  "  When  a  person  has  been  read- 
ing, he  must  rest  a  little  while  before  he  begin  to 
write  " ;  and  a  country  weaver  with  a  small  farm  will 
saunter  as  he  goes  from  the  loom  to  the  plough.  By 
fixing  each  man  to  an  operation  the  product  is  sure  to 
be  increased.     Again,  the  quantity  of  work  done  is 


v.]      THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE       S3 

much  augmented  by  the  invention  of  machinery.  Two 
men  and  three  horses  can  do  more  with  a  plough  than 
twenty  men  with  spades.  The  miller  and  his  servant 
will  do  more  with  the  water-mill  than  a  dozen  men 
with  the  hand-mill.  Horse-power  and  water-power  had 
been  brought  to  the  assistance  of  man  by  philosophic 
invention  ;  and  even  fire  had  been  called  in  to  aid  him 
by  the  mechanical  and  chemical  discoverers.  The 
lecturer  was  doubtless  thinking  of  his  colleague  Joseph 
Black,  and  of  James  Watt,  who  was  at  this  time 
working  within  the  precincts  of  Glasgow  College,  and 
was  just  developing  what  Smith  calls  "the  philosopher's 
invention  of  the  fire  machine." 

Smith  puts  forward  a  queer  idea — and  he  stood  to  it 
in  the  Wealth  of  Nations — that  what  gives  occasion  to 
the  division  of  labour  is  not  a  perception  of  the 
advantage  to  be  gained  thereby,  but  a  direct  pro- 
pensity in  human  nature  for  one  man  to  barter  with 
another.  This  love  of  barter  is  one  of  those  natural 
instincts  which  distinguish  us  from  animals.  The 
division  of  labour  and  the  material  wealth  of  society  are 
greatly  perfected  by  improvements  of  communication 
which  extend  markets;  for  division  of  labour  must 
always  be  proportioned  to  extent  of  commerce.  ■  If  ten 
people  only  want  a  certain  commodity,  the  manufacture 
of  it  will  never  be  so  divided  as  if  a  thousand  wanted 
it."  But  where  communications  are  bad  the  cost  of 
transit  hinders  the  distribution  of  goods.  If  roads 
are  "deep"  or  infested  with  robbers,  the  progress  of 
commerce  is  stopped.  "Since  the  mending  of  roads 
in  England  forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  its  opulence  has 
increased  extremely."  Water  carriage  also  effectively 
promotes  public  opulence ;  for  five  or  six  men  will  convey 


84  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

three  hundred  tons  by  water  more  quickly  than  a 
hundred  men  with  a  hundred  wagons  and  six  hundred 
horses  can  take  the  same  weight  by  land.1 

A  distinction  is  drawn  between  the  natural  and 
market  price  of  commodities.  A  man  has  the  natural 
price  of  his  labour  when  he  has  enough  to  maintain  him 
during  its  continuance,  to  defray  the  cost  of  his  educa- 
tion, and  to  compensate  the  risk  of  failure  or  of  prema- 
ture death.  When  a  man  can  get  this  natural  price  he 
will  have  sufficient  encouragement  and  will  produce  in 
proportion  to  the  demand.  The  market  is  regulated  by 
the  momentary  demand  for  a  thing,  by  its  abundance 
or  scarcity.  When  a  thing  is  very  scarce  the  price 
depends  upon  the  fortune  of  the  bidders.  "  As  in  an 
auction,  if  two  persons  have  an  equal  fondness  for  a 
book,  he  whose  fortune  is  the  largest  will  carry  it." 
The  conclusion  drawn  from  these  and  other  arguments 
is  that  whatever  "police  "  (i.e.  policy)  tends  to  raise  the 
market  price  above  the  natural,  tends  also  to  diminish 
public  opulence.  The  cheaper  the  conveniences  of 
life,  the  greater  is  the  purchasing  power  of  the  poor 
and  the  happier  will  a  society  be.  Any  policy  which 
raises  and  keeps  the  market  price  of  goods  above  their 
natural  price,  and  so  raises  the  national,  as  it  were, 
above  the  international  price,  diminishes  the  nation's 
opulence.  This  impoverishing  policy  took  various 
forms,  which  admitted  of  a  triple  classification : — 

1.  Taxes  on  industry  and  necessities. 

2.  Monopolies. 

3.  Exclusive  privileges  of  corporations,  and  com- 

binations, like  those  of  bakers  and  brewers, 

1  Cp.  Wealth  of  Nations,  Book  i.  chap.  iii. 


v.]   THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE   85 

which  kept  the  price  of  bread  and  beer  above 
the  natural  level. 

Further,  as  taxes  or  regulations  which  raise  the 
market  price  above  the  natural  price  diminish  public 
opulence,  so  do  bounties  like  those  upon  corn  and 
coarse  linen,  which  depress  the  market  price  below  the 
natural  price.  A  bounty  stimulates  the  production 
of  a  particular  commodity,  and  makes  it  cheaper  for 
foreigners  at  the  expense  of  the  public  at  home. 
Another  serious  objection  to  the  system  is  that  people 
are  diverted  from  other  employments,  and  thus  "  what 
may  be  called  the  natural  balance  of  industry "  is 
disturbed.  "Upon  the  whole,  therefore,  it  is  by  far 
the  best  police  to  leave  things  to  their  natural  course 
and  allow  no  bounties  nor  impose  taxes  on  com- 
modities." 

In  a  subsequent  lecture  he  arrived  at  the  same  con- 
clusion by  an  analysis  of  the  true  nature  of  money. 
At  that  time  money  was  almost  universally  identified 
with  wealth.  Though  Hume  had  exposed  the  fallacy  ten 
years  before,  his  essay  had  not  affected  national  policy.1 
Treaties  of  commerce  were  always  based  upon  the 
theory  of  the  balance  of  trade,  which  again  rested  on 
the  notion  that  if  a  country's  exports  could  be  made 
to  exceed  its  imports,  it  would  receive  the  balance  in 
gold  and  so  become  wealthy.  By  way  of  refuting  this 
strange  dogma  of  the  mercantilists,  Smith  used  a  very 
felicitous  illustration.  He  compared  money  to  the 
highroads  of  a  country  "  which  bear  neither  corn  nor 
grass  themselves  but  circulate  all  the  corn  and  grass 

1  And  even  Hume,  as  Smith  warned  his  class,  had  not  quite 
emancipated  himself  from  mercantilist  misconceptions. 


86  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

in  the  country."  If  we  could  save  some  of  the  ground 
taken  up  by  highways  without  diminishing  the  facilities 
of  carriage  and  communication,  we  should  add  to  the 
wealth  of  the  country ;  and  the  case  would  be  the  same 
if  by  such  a  device  as  paper-money  we  could  reduce 
the  stock  of  coin  required  without  impairing  its  effici- 
ency as  a  medium  of  exchange.  For  the  ground  saved 
could  be  cultivated,  and  the  money  saved  could  be  sent 
abroad  in  exchange  for  useful  commodities.  Thus  the 
nation  would  be  enriched ;  for  its  opulence  "  does  not 
consist  in  the  quantity  of  coin,  but  in  the  abundance 
of  commodities  which  are  necessary  for  life." 

In  deference  to  the  mercantilists  the  government 
had  prohibited  the  exportation  of  coin,  "which  pro- 
hibition has  been  extremely  hurtful  to  the  commerce 
of  the  country,"  for  every  unnecessary  accumulation 
of  money  is  a  dead  stock.  The  same  idea  that  wealth 
consists  in  money  had  also  led  to  fiscal  discrimination 
against  France  and  in  favour  of  Spain  and  Portugal. 
Why  was  this  policy  absurd  ?  The  reason,  said  Smith, 
will  appear  on  the  least  reflection,  and  he  thereupon 
put  to  the  students  in  a  few  telling  sentences  those 
elementary  truths  about  the  nature  of  foreign  trade 
which  seem  too  simple  even  to  have  been  discovered, 
yet  are  still  sometimes  but  imperfectly  applied  by  the 
most  enlightened  statesmen,  and  have  not  always  been 
apprehended  by  trained  economists  : — 

"All  commerce  that  is  carried  on  betwixt  any  two  countries 
must  necessarily  be  advantageous  to  both.  The  very  inten- 
tion of  commerce  is  to  exchange  your  own  commodities  for 
others  ■which  you  think  will  be  more  convenient  for  you. 
When  two  men  trade  between  themselves  it  is  undoubtedly 
for  the  advantage  of  both.     The  one  has  perhaps  more  of  one 


v.]      THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE       87 

species  of  commodities  than  he  has  occasion  for,  he  therefore 
exchanges  a  certain  quantity  of  it  with  the  other,  for  another 
commodity  that  will  be  more  useful  to  him.  The  other  agrees 
to  the  bargain  on  the  same  account,  and  in  this  manner  the 
mutual  commerce  is  advantageous  to  both.  The  case  is  exactly 
the  same  betwixt  any  two  nations.  The  goods  which  the 
English  merchants  want  to  import  from  France  are  certainly 
more  valuable  to  them  than  what  they  give  for  them.  Our 
very  desire  to  purchase  them  shows  that  we  have  more  use  for 
them  than  either  the  money  or  the  commodities  which  we  give 
for  them.  It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  money  lasts  for  ever, 
but  that  claret  and  cambrics  are  soon  consumed.  This  is  true. 
But  what  is  the  intention  of  industry  if  it  be  not  to  produce 
those  things  which  are  capable  of  being  used,  and  are  con- 
ducive to  the  convenience  and  comfort  of  human  life  ? " 

In  short,  imports  are  just  as  advantageous  as  exports, 
and  one  is  the  necessary  complement  of  the  other.  All 
jealousies  and  wars  between  nations  are  extremely  bad 
for  commerce.  If  preferential  trade  is  to  be  established 
at  all,  it  should  be  with  France,  a  much  richer  and  more 
populous  country  than  Spain,  and  also  our  nearest 
neighbour.  "  It  were  happy  both  for  this  country  and 
France  that  all  national  prejudices  were  rooted  out 
and  a  free  and  uninterrupted  commerce  established." 
Foreign  trade,  if  wisely  and  prudently  carried  on,  can 
never  impoverish  a  country. 

"The  poverty  of  a  nation  proceeds  from  much  the  same 
causes  with  those  which  render  an  individual  poor.  When  a 
man  consumes  more  than  he  gains  by  his  industry,  he  must 
impoverish  himself  unless  he  has  some  other  way  of  subsist- 
ence. In  the  same  manner,  if  a  nation  consume  more  than  it 
produces,  poverty  is  inevitable ;  if  its  annual  produce  be 
ninety  millions  and  its  annual  consumption  an  hundred,  then 
it  spends,  eats  and  drinks,  tears,  wears,  ten  millions  more  than 
it  produces,  and  its  stock  of  opulence  must  gradually  go  to 
nothing." 


88  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

He  proceeds  to  uproot  that  hardy  perennial  of  fiscal 
culture — the  opinion  that  no  expenditure  at  home  can 
be  injurious  to  public  opulence.  Let  us  suppose,  he 
says,  that  my  father  leaves  me  a  thousand  pounds'  worth 
of  the  necessaries  and  conveniences  of  life.  "  I  get  a 
number  of  idle  folks  around  me,  and  eat,  drink,  tear  and 
wear  till  the  whole  is  consumed.  By  this  I  not  only 
reduce  myself  to  want,  but  certainly  rob  the  public 
stock  of  a  thousand  pounds,  as  it  is  spent  and  nothing 
produced  for  it."  In  the  same  way  money  spent  on 
war  is  wasted  wherever  the  war  is  waged  and  wher- 
ever the  money  employed  in  preparations  is  laid  out. 
Finally,  he  sums  up  for  free  imports  in  language  that 
could  not  be  strengthened : — 

"From  the  above  considerations  it  appears  that  Britain 
should  by  all  means  be  made  a  free  port,  that  there  should  be 
no  interruptions  of  any  kind  made  to  foreign  trade,  that  if 
it  were  possible  to  defray  the  expenses  of  government  by 
any  other  method,  all  duties,  customs,  and  excise  should  be 
abolished,  and  that  free  commerce  and  liberty  of  exchange 
should  be  allowed  with  all  nations,  and  for  all  things." 

Holding,  then,  that  all  taxes  upon  exports  and  im- 
ports, as  well  as  all  excise  duties,1  hinder  commerce, 
discourage  manufactures,  and  hamper  the  division  of 
labour,  Smith  was  inclined  in  his  rather  meagre  treat- 
ment of  taxation  to  favour  direct  imposts.  He  was 
not  one  of  those  who  think  that  taxation  is  the  royal 
road  to  prosperity,  and  insist  that  the  only  way  to  save 

1  Ltctures,  p.  241  :  "Excise  raises  the  price  of  commodities 
and  makes  fewer  people  able  to  carry  on  business.  If  a  man 
purchase  £1000  worth  of  tobacco  he  has  a  hundred  pounds  of 
tax  to  pay,  and  therefore  cannot  deal  to  such  an  extent  as  he 
would  otherwise  do.  Thus,  as  it  requires  greater  stock  to  carry 
on  trade,  the  dealers  must  be  fewer,  and  the  rich  have,  as  it 
were,  a  monopoly  against  the  poor." 


v.]      THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE       89 

the  nation  is  by  picking  its  pocket.  On  the  contrary, 
believing  that  the  best  method  of  raising  revenue  is  to 
save  it,  he  introduced  taxation  as  one  of  the  causes  that 
retard  the  growth  of  opulence.  But  as  the  thriftiest 
government  has  some  expenses,  and  therefore  some 
taxes,  an  economist  was  bound  to  weigh  the  merits  and 
demerits  of  each.  Though  in  comparison  with  the 
corresponding  chapters  in  the  Wealth  of  Nations  his 
paragraphs  on  taxation  seem  raw,  the  doctrine  is 
already  far  in  advance  of  Hume's.  He  dwells  on 
the  immense  advantage  of  the  land-tax,  which  only 
cost  the  government  about  eight  or  ten  thousand 
pounds  to  collect,  over  the  customs  and  excise,  which 
produce  such  immense  sums,  but  "are  almost  eaten 
up  by  the  legions  of  officers  that  are  employed  in 
collecting  them."  Another  advantage  of  the  land-tax 
over  taxes  on  consumption  was  that  it  did  not  raise 
prices ;  and  it  was  better  than  a  tax  on  capital  or  income 
("stock  or  money"),  in  that,  land  being  visible  pro- 
perty, the  sum  required  could  be  assessed  without  very 
arbitrary  proceedings.  "It  is  a  hardship  upon  a  man 
in  trade  to  oblige  him  to  show  his  books,  which  is  the 
only  way  we  can  know  how  much  he  is  worth.  It  is 
a  breach  of  liberty,  and  may  be  productive  of  very  bad 
consequences  by  ruining  his  credit."  Yet  Smith  was 
far  from  being  a  single  taxer.  "If  on  account  of  this 
difficulty  you  were  to  tax  land,  and  neither  tax  money 
nor  stock,  you  would  do  a  piece  of  very  great  injustice." 
The  only  advantage  to  taxpayers  of  taxes  on  com- 
modities is  that  they  are  paid  in  small  sums  at  a 
time,  whereas  taxes  on  possessions  are  paid  in  large 
lump  sums.  But  to  the  government  there  is  the  all- 
important  fact  that  they  are  paid  insensibly  and  are 


90  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

not  so  much  murmured  against.  "When  we  buy  a 
pound  of  tea  we  do  not  reflect  that  the  most  part  of 
the  price  is  a  duty  paid  to  the  government,  and  there- 
fore pay  it  contentedly,  as  though  it  were  only  the 
natural  price  of  the  commodity.  In  the  same  manner, 
when  an  additional  tax  is  laid  upon  beer,  the  price  of 
it  must  be  raised,  but  the  mob  do  not  directly  vent 
their  malice  against  the  government,  who  are  the 
proper  objects  of  it,  but  upon  the  brewers,  as  they 
confound  the  tax  price  with  the  natural  one." 

In  Holland  the  consumer  first  paid  the  price  to  the 
merchant  and  then  (separately)  the  tax  to  the  excise 
officer.  "  We  in  reality  do  the  very  same  thing,  but 
as  we  do  not  feel  it  immediately  we  imagine  it  all  one 
price,  and  never  reflect  that  we  might  drink  port  wine 
below  sixpence  a  bottle  were  it  not  for  the  duty." 
His  general  objection  to  duties  on  imports  is  that 
they  divert  capital  and  industry  into  unnatural 
channels,  while  the  effects  of  export  duties  are  still  more 
pernicious  in  confining  consumption  and  diminishing 
industry.  Uztariz,  a  well-known  Spanish  writer  of 
that  day,  had  observed  in  his  book  on  commerce : — 

"I  have  found  ministers  and  others,  both  in  their 
conversation  and  writings,  maintain  the  erroneous 
maxim  that  high  duties  are  to  be  laid  upon  com- 
modities exported,  because  foreigners  pay  them ;  and, 
on  the  contrary,  very  moderate  ones  on  such  as  are 
imported,  because  his  majesty's  subjects  are  at  the 
charge  of  them."1     This  policy,  says  Smith,  is  one 

1  Uztariz,  Theory  and  Practice  of  Commerce  and  Maritime 
Affairs,  translated  by  John  Kippax,  1751,  vol.  ii.  p.  52. 
The  allusion  has  been  discovered  by  Mr.  Edwin  Cannan.  See 
Lectures,  p.  246. 


v.]      THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE       91 

great  cause  of  the  poverty  of  Spain.  Yet  the  Spaniards 
were  wiser  than  some  moderns  who  have  sought 
to  persuade  the  public  that  both  export  and  import 
duties  are  paid  by  the  foreigner. 

Apart  from  their  extraordinary  power  and  originality 
as  contributions  to  a  new  science,  we  are  struck  in 
these  lectures  by  two  qualities,  freedom  from  prejudice, 
with  the  accompanying  desire  for  reformation,  and  a 
tolerance  of  things  that  are  tolerable.  Even  when  he 
is  exposing  the  absurdities  of  the  Mercantile  System, 
and  the  evils  of  the  scheme  of  taxation  which  it  had 
produced  in  England,  he  readily  concedes  that  things 
might  have  been  far  worse,  and  is  glad  to  confess  that 
upon  the  whole  "  the  English  are  the  best  financiers  in 
Europe,  and  their  taxes  are  levied  with  more  propriety 
than  those  of  any  country  whatever."  Elsewhere, 
indeed,  he  shows  that  the  fiscal  system  of  Holland  was 
in  some  important  respects  superior ;  and  in  the  Wealth 
of  Nations  his  language  cooled: — "Our  state  is  not 
perfect,  but  it  is  as  good  or  better  than  that  of  most  of 
our  neighbours." 

Yet  neither  tolerance,  nor  patriotic  bias,  nor  the  im- 
probability of  reform  prevented  him  from  criticising 
bad  institutions.  He  saw  how  evil  was  the  system  of 
unpaid  magistracies  which  Bentham  burned  and  Gneist 
adored.  He  saw  how  advantageous  was  the  famous 
excise  scheme  which  ruined  Walpole.  He  objected  to 
large  farms  and  entailed  estates,  and  was  not  afraid  to 
declare  that  a  thousand  acres  ought  to  be  purchased  as 
easily  as  a  thousand  yards  of  cloth.  He  laughed  at 
the  notion,  still  strangely  prevalent,  that  agriculture 
is  injured  by  manufactures.  "  It  is  always  a  sign,"  he 
says,  "  that  the  country  is  improving,  when  men  go  to 


92  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

town.  There  are  no  parts  of  the  country  so  well  in- 
habited nor  so  well  cultivated  as  those  which  lie  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  populous  cities."  He  described  how 
Philip  IV.  went  to  the  plough  himself  to  set  the 
fashion,  and  did  everything  for  the  farmers  except 
bringing  them  a  good  market ;  how  he  conferred  the 
titles  of  nobility  upon  several  farmers,  and  very 
absurdly  endeavoured  to  oppress  manufacturers  with 
heavy  taxes  in  order  to  force  them  to  the  country. 

Smith  concluded  his  discourse  upon  Cheapness  or 
Plenty  with  a  few  remarks  on  the  influence  of  com- 
merce on  manners ;  and  having  thus  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  a  new  science,  a  true  system  of  political 
economy,  he  went  on  to  "Arms"  (Part  iv.),  and 
treated  of  Militias,  Discipline,  and  Standing  Armies. 
His  course  ended  with  a  survey  (Part  v.)  of  the  Laws 
of  Nations.  The  rules,  he  remarks,  which  nations 
ought  to  observe,  or  do  observe,  with  one  another 
cannot  be  stated  with  precision.  It  is  true  that  the 
rules  of  property  and  of  justice  are  pretty  uniform  in 
the  civilised  world.  But  with  regard  to  international 
law,  what  Grotius  had  said  was  still  true.  It  was  hard 
to  mention  a  single  regulation  that  had  been  established 
with  the  common  consent  of  all  nations  and  was  ob- 
served as  such  at  all  times.  Smith,  as  usual,  sought 
for  the  reason,  and  as  usual  found  it.  "This  must 
necessarily  be  the  case ;  for  where  there  is  no  supreme 
legislative  power  nor  judge  to  settle  differences  we  may 
always  expect  uncertainty  and  irregularity." 

The  pope,  indeed,  as  the  common  father  of  Christen- 
dom, had  introduced  more  humanity  into  warfare ;  but 
except  for  this  hint  Smith  seems  to  have  made  no 
proposal  for  filling  up  the  blank.    We  can  only  imagin- 


v,       THE  LECTURES  ON  JUSTICE  AND  POLICE       93 

how  one  who  so  loved  peace  and  hated  war  would  have 
rejoiced  to  see  nations  moving  slowly  but  surely 
towards  the  idea  of  an  international  judge,  and  learn- 
ing that,  as  the  Duel  is  not  the  last  word  of  civilisation 
in  individual  quarrels,  so  the  Battle  is  not  the  last  or 
the  best  trial  of  disputes  between  nations. 


CHAPTER    VI 

GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY 

Mr.  Rae's  diligent  researches  have  disposed  of  the 
idea  that  Smith  was  one  of  those  profound  philo- 
sophers who  are  helpless  in  the  practical  affairs  of 
life.  It  appears  from  the  records  of  the  Glasgow 
University,  that  during  his  thirteen  years'  residence  he 
did  more  college  business  than  any  other  professor. 
He  audited  accounts,  inspected  drains  and  hedges, 
examined  encroachments  on  college  land,  and  served 
as  college  quaestor,  or  treasurer,  with  the  management 
of  the  library  funds,  for  the  last  six  years  of  his  pro- 
fessorship. He  was  Dean  of  Faculty  from  1760  to 
1762,  when  he  was  appointed  Vice-Rector.  As  such, 
in  the  frequent  absence  of  the  Rector,  he  had  to  preside 
over  all  University  meetings,  including  the  Rector's 
Court,  which  had  judicial  as  well  as  administrative 
powers,  and  could  even  punish  students  by  imprison- 
ment in  the  college  steeple.  He  went  frequently  to 
Edinburgh,  and  at  least  once  to  London,  on  college 
business ;  and  altogether  we  may  discredit  the  remark 
made  by  one  of  Smith's  Edinburgh  neighbours  and 
reported  by  Robert  Chambers :  "  It  is  strange  that  a 
man  who  wrote  so  well  on  exchange  and  barter  had  to 
get  a  friend  to  buy  his  horse-corn  for  him." 

There  is  one  picturesque  incident  in  the  history 

94 


chap,  vi.]   GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  95 

of  Smith's  connection  with  the  college.  The  im- 
position of  octroi  duties  on  food  coming  into  the 
city  was  still  the  principal  means  of  raising  municipal 
revenue  in  Glasgow  as  in  most  other  towns  of  Scotland. 
But  the  students  of  the  University  were  so  far  exempt 
from  the  tribute  that  they  were  allowed  at  the  begin- 
ning of  each  session  to  bring  in  with  them  as  much 
oatmeal  as  would  keep  them  till  the  end  of  it.  In 
1757  this  ancient  privilege  was  contested,  and  the 
students  were  obliged  by  the  M  tackman  "  of  the  meal 
market  to  pay  duty  on  their  meal.  Smith  and  another 
professor  were  sent  to  the  Provost  to  protest  against 
this  infraction  of  University  privileges,  and  to  demand 
repayment.  At  the  next  meeting  of  the  Senate,  "  Mr. 
Smith  reported  that  he  had  spoken  to  the  Provost  of 
Glasgow  about  the  ladles,  exacted  by  the  town  from 
students,  for  meal  brought  into  the  town  for  their  own 
use,  and  that  the  Provost  promised  to  cause  what  had 
been  exacted  to  be  returned,  and  that  accordingly 
the  money  was  offered  by  the  town's  ladler  to  the 
students." 

The  intellectual  level  of  the  professors  and  lecturers 
in  the  University  of  Glasgow  was  already  high  when 
Smith  joined  them,  and  the  place  was  free  from  the 
monopolistic  spirit  which  dulled  and  enervated  the 
universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  In  1752,  a 
year  after  his  arrival,  Smith  took  part  in  founding 
what  was  called  the  Literary  Society  of  Glasgow. 
Besides  the  professors  a  number  of  outsiders  were 
admitted — David  Hume,  Sir  John  Dalrymple  the 
historian,  John  Callander  the  antiquary,  Eobert  Foulis 
the  famous  printer,  and  others.  In  one  of  the  first 
papers   read  to  this  society  (January   1753)  Adam 


96  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Smith  reviewed  Hume's  Essays  on  Commerce.  He  had 
no  doubt  read  the  essays  in  proof,  as  there  is  a  letter 
from  Hume  in  the  previous  September,  asking  him  for 
criticisms  towards  a  new  edition  he  was  then  preparing 
of  his  Essays,  Moral  and  Political,  in  which  these  new 
Commercial  Essays  were  to  be  incorporated. 

Another  and  more  convivial  club  was  presided 
over  by  Simson,  the  professor  of  Mathematics,  whose 
genius  and  amiability  had  impressed  Adam  Smith  from 
his  student  days.  When  Simson  died  in  1768  he  had 
spent  half  a  century  in  the  college.  He  divided  each 
day  with  precision  between  work,  sleep,  refection  in 
the  tavern  at  the  gate,  and  a  measured  walk  in  the 
gardens.  Every  Friday  evening  his  club  supped  in 
the  tavern,  and  every  Saturday  the  members  walked 
out  a  mile  to  the  neighbouring  village  of  Anderston, 
and  there  feasted  on  the  customary  one-course  dinner 
of  chicken  broth,  with  a  tankard  of  claret  followed  by 
whist  and  punch.  Kamsay  of  Ochtertyre  says  that 
Smith  was  a  bad  partner.  If  an  idea  came  to  him  in 
the  middle  of  the  game  he  would  renounce  or  neglect 
to  call.  After  cards  they  would  talk,  or  Simson,  who 
was  the  soul  of  gaiety,  would  sing  Greek  odes  to 
modern  airs.  A  more  distinguished  circle  than  this  of 
plain  livers  and  high  thinkers  could  hardly  have  been 
found  in  Europe.  Besides  the  editor  of  Euclid  it 
included  the  founders  of  political  economy  and  modern 
chemistry,  and  the  inventor  of  the  steam  engine.  For 
Joseph  Black  and  his  young  assistant,  James  Watt,  sat 
round  the  same  fireside  with  Simson  and  Adam  Smith. 
To  the  conversation  of  the  club,  said  Watt,  "my 
mind  owed  its  first  bias  towards  such  subjects  [litera- 
ture,  philosophy,  etc.],  in  which  they  were  all  my 


vi.]  GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  97 

superiors,  I  never  having  attended  college,  and  being 
then  but  a  mechanic."  In  1756  young  Watt  had  come 
from  London  to  Glasgow,  and  being  refused  permission 
by  the  close  corporation  of  hammermen  to  set  up  as  a 
mechanic  in  the  town,  he  was  welcomed  by  the  pro- 
fessors, who  appointed  him  maker  of  mathematical 
instruments  to  the  University,  and  gave  him  a  work- 
shop and  saleroom  within  its  precincts.  It  is  easy  to 
imagine  the  delight  with  which  Smith  joined  in 
rescuing  Watt  from  the  tyranny  of  a  close  corporation. 
The  workshop  was  one  of  his  favourite  resorts,  and  the 
two  became  fast  friends.  More  than  half  a  century 
afterwards,  one  of  the  first  works  which  the  "  young " 
artist  of  eighty-three  executed  with  his  newly  in- 
vented "sculpture  machine"  was  a  bust  of  Smith 
in  ivory. 

In  another  part  of  the  college  space  had  been  found 
for  Robert  Foulis's  printing-office.  Encouraged  by 
Hutcheson,  Foulis  had  begun  his  business  in  Glasgow 
just  before  Smith  left  for  Oxford.  His  "immaculate  " 
Horace,  the  famous  duodecimo,  appeared  in  1744,  the 
proof-sheets  having  been  hung  up  in  the  college  and  a 
reward  offered  for  the  detection  of  any  inaccuracy. 
Adam  Smith  was  a  subscriber  for  two  sets  of  Hutche- 
son's  System  of  Moral  Philosophy,  two  beautifully 
printed  quarto  volumes  issued  by  the  Foulis  press 
in  1755.  The  type  used  by  the  press  came  from 
Alexander  Wilson's  typefoundry  at  Camlachie.  But  in 
1760  the  college  built  an  observatory,  and  with  the 
aid  of  the  Crown  founded  a  new  chair  of  Astronomy. 
Thereupon  Wilson,  being  appointed  to  the  chair,  asked 
to  be  allowed  to  transfer  his  foundry  to  the  college,  and 
the  authorities,  on  the  motion  of  Adam  Smith,  resolved 

G 


98  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

to  build  a  foundry  in  the  grounds.  Thus  during 
Smith's  residence  there  were  set  up  within  the  precincts 
of  the  University  Watt's  workshop,  Foulis's  printing- 
press,  Wilson's  observatory  and  foundry,  and  last  but 
not  least,  Cullen's  laboratory,  where  Black  his  assistant 
discovered  the  existence  of  latent  heat. 

The  professors  even  started  a  series  of  lectures  on 
natural  science  to  a  class  of  working  men.  In  1761 
Smith  and  others  sought  to  establish  a  school  for 
dancing,  fencing,  and  riding.  But  this  project  failed ; 
and  in  the  following  year  Smith  is  found  as  an  active 
opponent  of  a  proposal  started  in  the  town  for  the 
erection  of  a  permanent  theatre.  He  presides  at  a 
meeting  which  resolves  that  the  University  should 
join  forces  with  the  magistracy  against  this  innovation. 
Shortly  after  his  departure  the  opposition  dropped  and 
the  theatre  was  built.  But  it  was  burned  down  by  a 
mob  of  zealots,  and  in  the  Wealth  of  Nations  Smith 
not  only  lashes  those  "  fanatical  promoters  of  popular 
frenzies,"  who  have  always  made  the  theatre  an  object 
of  their  peculiar  abhorrence,  but  demands  that  the 
State  should  give  "  entire  liberty  to  all  those  who  for 
their  own  interest  would  attempt,  without  scandal  or 
indecency,  to  amuse  and  divert  the  people  by  painting, 
poetry,  music,  dancing,  by  all  sorts  of  dramatic  repre- 
sentations and  exhibitions."  Such  public  diversions 
would  easily  dissipate  "that  melancholy  and  gloomy 
humour  which  is  almost  always  the  nurse  of  popular 
superstition  and  enthusiasm,"  and  Avould,  with  the 
aid  of  science  and  philosophy,  correct  whatever  was 
unsocial  or  disagreeably  rigorous  in  the  morals  of  the 
country.  By  then  he  had  learned  to  admire  the  French 
theatre  as  well  as   the  French   dramatists.      A  true 


vi.]  GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  99 

liberal,  he  was  always  open  to  new  ideas,  and  this  last 
stump  of  Scottish  prejudice  was  rooted  out  by  his 
continental  tour. 

In  the  fifties  Smith  and  Black  helped  Foulis  to 
start  an  institution  called  the  Academy  of  Design, 
said  to  have  been  the  first  of  its  kind  in  Great 
Britain.  The  authorities  of  the  University  found  rooms 
for  the  purpose  in  the  college,  and  they  may  therefore 
claim  to  have  been  the  fathers,  not  only  of  the  Uni- 
versity extension  movement,  but  also  of  technical 
instruction.  Painting,  sculpture,  and  engraving  were 
the  principal  arts  taught  in  this  Academy.  Tassie  and 
David  Allan  were  ajnong  the  students;  and  Lord 
Buchan,  who  boasted  of  walking  "  after  the  manner  of 
the  ancients  in  the  porticoes  of  Glasgow  with  Smith 
and  with  Millar,"  learned  to  etch  in  Foulis's  studio.  A 
shop  was  started  in  Edinburgh  for  the  sale  of  works 
of  art  produced  in  the  Academy,  and  Sir  John 
Dairy mple,  writing  to  Foulis  in  1757,  begs  him  to  take 
the  advice  of  Mr.  Smith  and  Dr.  Black,  who  are  the 
best  judges  of  what  will  sell.  He  also  advises  Foulis 
to  have  a  circular  drafted  showing  the  advantages  of 
the  Academy.  "  Mr.  Smith  is  too  busy  or  too  indolent, 
but  I  flatter  myself  Dr.  Black  will  be  happy  to  make 
out  this  memorial  for  you."  He  invites  Foulis  and 
Smith  to  visit  him  in  the  Christmas  vacance. 

There  is  no  doubt,  from  the  amount  of  business  they 
laid  on  his  shoulders,  and  their  choice  of  him  as 
"Prseses"  in  1762,  that  Smith's  colleagues  had  a  high 
opinion  of  his  practical  abilities.  His  public  spirit  and 
loyalty  to  the  University  were  unbounded.  The 
warmest  and  most  generous  of  friends,  he  was  also  one 
of  those  rare  spirits,  especially  rare  in  the  reign  of 


100  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

George  the  Third,  who  never  let  private  interests 
turn  the  scale  against  the  common  good.  He  made 
three  protests  against  a  professor  exercising  the  legal 
right  of  voting  for  himself  in  an  election  to  an  office  of 
profit.  When  Rouet,  the  professor  of  History,  asked 
for  leave  of  absence,  so  that  he  might  travel  abroad  as 
Lord  Hope's  tutor  without  relinquishing  his  professor- 
ship, Smith  voted  with  a  majority  for  refusing  the 
leave,  and  on  a  later  occasion  for  depriving  him  of 
office.  This  led  to  a  quarrel  with  the  Lord  Rector, 
but  the  pressure  of  college  opinion  eventually  forced 
Rouet  to  resign.  We  shall  see  that  Smith  on  a  similar 
occasion  was  careful  to  practise  as  he  had  preached. 

From  this  reformed  and  progressive  University  the 
economist  often  issued  forth  to  breathe  the  eager 
air  of  a  thriving  mart.  The  town  was  remarkably 
free  from  poverty  and  crime.  In  his  lectures  he 
said  that  in  Glasgow  there  was  less  crime  than  in 
Edinburgh,  because  it  had  more  commerce  and  inde- 
pendence, fewer  servants  and  retainers.  When  he 
first  went  to  Glasgow  as  a  student  it  was  still 
poor ;  when  he  returned  as  a  professor,  its  commercial 
prosperity  had  fairly  begun.  Its  loyalty  to  the 
Hanoverian  dynasty  had  cost  it  heavily  in  1745,  but 
that  loyalty  is  intelligible  enough ;  for  the  Act  of 
Union  which  deprived  Edinburgh  of  its  Parliament, 
and  of  much  of  its  resident  aristocracy,  opened  up  the 
colonial  markets  to  Glasgow,  and  enabled  its  enter- 
prising merchants  to  participate  in  the  profitable 
monopoly  of  the  American  trade.  By  the  middle  of 
the  century  it  was  already  the  emporium  for  colonial 
tobacco.  A  tannery  employed  several  hundred  men; 
linen,  copper,  tin,  and  pottery  became  staple  manu- 


vi.]  GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  101 

factures  in  the  forties ;  carpets,  crape,  and  silk  in  the 
fifties.  Gibson,  in  his  history  of  the  town,  tells  us  that 
after  1750  (when  the  first  Glasgow  Bank  was  opened) 
"not  a  beggar  was  to  be  seen  in  the  streets."  When 
he  adds  that  "  the  very  children  were  busy,"  we  think 
of  the  early  history  of  factories  and  shudder.  "  I  have 
heard  it  asserted,"  says  Smith  in  the  Wealth  of  Nations 
(Book  II.  chap,  ii.),  "that  the  trade  of  the  city  of 
Glasgow  doubled  in  about  fifteen  years  after  the  first 
erection  of  the  banks  there,  and  that  the  trade  of 
Scotland  has  more  than  quadrupled  since  the  first 
erection  of  the  two  public  banks  at  Edinburgh."  He 
will  not  vouch  for  the  figures,  and  holds  such  an 
effect  "too  great  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  sole 
operation  of  this  cause,"  but  says  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  the  trade  of  Scotland  did  increase  very  consider- 
ably during  the  period,  and  that  the  banks  contributed 
a  good  deal  to  this  increase. 

All  these  external  marks  of  enterprise  and  progress 
indicated  the  truth  of  another  of  Smith's  sayings, 
that  a  few  spirited  merchants  are  a  much  better  thing 
for  a  town  than  the  residence  of  a  court.  According 
to  Sir  John  Dalrymple,  the  three  leading  merchants  of 
that  time  were  together  worth  a  quarter  of  a  million 
of  money.  Measured  by  modern  standards  these  are 
petty  figures ;  but  Mr.  Bae  says  that  commercial  men 
in  Glasgow  still  look  back  to  John  Glassford  and 
Andrew  Cochrane  as  perhaps  the  greatest  merchants 
the  Clyde  had  ever  seen.  Cochrane,  who  was  Provost 
when  the  Young  Pretender  paid  his  unwelcome  visit, 
founded  a  weekly  club,  the  express  design  of  which, 
according  to  Dr.  Carlyle,  was  to  inquire  into  the 
nature  and  principles  of  trade.     Smith,  who  joined  the 


102  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

club,  became  intimate  with  Cochrane,  and  afterwards, 
in  Dr.  Carlyle's  words,  "acknowledged  his  obligations 
to  this  gentleman's  information  when  he  was  collecting 
materials  for  his  Wealth  of  Nations."  The  junior 
merchants,  adds  the  Doctor,  who  flourished  after 
Cochrane,  "confess  with  respectful  remembrance  that 
it  was  Andrew  Cochrane  who  first  opened  and  enlarged 
their  views."  In  Humphrey  Clinker  he  is  described  as 
"  one  of  the  first  sages  of  the  Scottish  Kingdom." 

Dugald  Stewart,  who  drew  his  information  from 
James  Ritchie,  an  eminent  merchant  of  Glasgow,  tells 
us  that  Smith's  intimacy  with  its  most  respected  in- 
habitants gave  him  the  commercial  information  he 
needed ;  and  he  adds :  "  It  is  a  circumstance  no  less 
honourable  to  their  liberality  than  to  his  talents,  that 
notwithstanding  the  reluctance  so  common  among  men 
of  business  to  listen  to  the  conclusions  of  mere  specula- 
tion and  the  direct  opposition  of  his  leading  principles 
to  all  the  old  maxims  of  trade,  he  was  able  before  he 
quitted  his  situation  in  the  University  to  rank  some 
very  eminent  merchants  in  the  number  of  his  pros- 
elytes." That  Provost  Cochrane  and  his  brethren 
were  well  inclined  to  these  doctrines  is  probable,  as 
they  suffered  severely  from  the  duties  on  American 
iron ;  and  that  interest  in  economic  subjects  was 
strong  is  proved  by  the  printing  of  several  important 
books  at  Glasgow  about  this  time. 

The  merchants  were,  however,  much  under  the 
influence  of  an  economist  of  the  old  school,  Sir  James 
Steuart,  who  lived  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  the 
progress  of  Smith's  opinions  was  more  rapid  in  the 
University.  It  was  the  students,  as  Dugald  Stewart 
tells  us,  "  that  first  adopted  his  system  with  eagerness 


vi.]  GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  103 

and  diffused  a  knowledge  of  its  fundamental  principles 
over  this  part  of  the  kingdom." 

During  these  thirteen  years  at  Glasgow  Smith  kept 
up  his  connection  with  Edinburgh  by  pretty  constant 
visits.  Shorn  of  royalty  by  the  union  of  crowns,  and 
of  its  parliament  by  the  union  of  parliaments,  Edin- 
burgh was  slowly  recovering  in  trade  what  it  had 
lost  in  political  significance.  It  had  kept  its  Courts  of 
Justice,  and  its  boards  of  customs  and  excise.  Above 
all,  it  was  the  centre  of  an  intellectual  activity  which 
gave  Scotland  for  the  first  time  a  name  and  a  fame  in 
European  philosophy  and  letters. 

The  social  and  intellectual  leader  of  the  new  move- 
ment was  Smith's  early  friend  and  benefactor,  Henry 
Home,  who  was  raised  to  the  bench  as  Lord  Karnes  in 
1752,  a  man  of  very  liberal  and  progressive  ideas,  full 
of  patriotic  schemes  for  the  improvement  of  Scottish 
art,  manufactures,  and  agriculture.  His  writings, 
though  highly  praised  for  their  learning,  have  long 
been  forgotten,  for  sufficient  reason.  "  I  am  afraid  of 
Karnes's  Law  Tracts,"  Hume  once  wrote  to  Smith. 
"The  man  might  as  well  think  of  making  a  fine  sauce 
by  a  mixture  of  wormwood  and  aloes  as  an  agreeable 
combination  by  joining  metaphysics  and  Scottish  Law." 
Robertson,  already  a  prominent  preacher  and  ecclesi- 
astical politician,  was  feeling  his  way  towards  Edinburgh 
and  literary  fame.  John  Home,  a  brother  minister, 
was  composing  the  Tragedy  of  Douglas,  counted  by 
Hume,  so  he  told  Smith  in  1756,  "  the  best,  and  by 
French  critics  the  only  tragedy  in  our  language." 
Another  member  of  this  circle,  quite  a  fashionable 
oddity,  who  ploughed  his  own  glebe  like  a  peasant, 
and   startled  a   passer-by  with   apt   quotations   from 


104  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Theocritus,  was  Wilkie,  the  author  of  the  Epigoniad,  a 
particular  friend  and  admirer  of  our  philosopher. 
Then  there  were  the  two  Dairy mples,  both  historians, 
and  the  gossipy  autobiographer,  Dr.  Carlyle.  Three 
politicians  of  distinction  often  adorned  Edinburgh 
society  at  this  time  :  brilliant  Charles  Townshend,  who 
was  to  make  a  revolution  in  Smith's  life,  James  Oswald, 
his  old  friend  and  neighbour,  and  William  Johnstone 
(Sir  William  Pulteney).  Among  the  relics  of  Smith's 
correspondence  is  an  introductory  letter,  dated  January 
19,  1752,  to  Oswald,  then  at  the  Board  of  Trade, 
which  "will  be  delivered  to  you  by  Mr.  William 
Johnstone,  son  of  Sir  James  Johnstone  of  Westerhall, 
a  young  gentleman  whom  I  have  known  intimately 
these  four  years,  and  of  whose  discretion,  good  temper, 
sincerity,  and  honour,  I  have  had  during  all  that  time 
frequent  proof."  The  young  gentleman  was  to  give  a 
further  signal  proof  of  his  discretion  by  bestowing  his 
affections  on  a  Pulteney,  whose  vast  fortune  doubtless 
consoled  him  for  the  surrender  of  his  name.  The 
letter  continues : — 

"  You  will  find  in  him  too,  if  you  come  to  know  him  better, 
some  qualities  which  from  real  and  unaffected  modesty  he 
does  not  at  first  discover  ;  a  refinement  and  depth  of  observa- 
tion and  an  accuracy  of  judgment,  joined  to  a  natural  delicacy 
of  sentiment,  as  much  improved  as  study  and  the  narrow 
sphere  of  acquaintance  this  country  affords  can  improve  it. 
He  had,  first  when  I  knew  him,  a  good  deal  of  vivacity  and 
humour,  but  he  has  studied  them  away.  He  is  an  advocate  ; 
and  though  I  am  sensible  of  the  folly  of  prophesying  with 
regard  to  the  future  fortune  of  so  young  a  man,  yet  I  could 
almost  venture  to  foretell  that  if  he  lives  he  will  be  eminent 
in  that  profession.  He  has,  I  think,  every  quality  that  ought 
to  forward,  and  not  one  that  should  obstruct  his  progress, 


vi.]  GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  105 

modesty  and  sincerity  excepted,  and  these,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
experience  and  a  better  sense  of  things  may  in  part  cure  him 
of.  I  do  not,  I  assure  you,  exaggerate  knowingly,  but  could 
pawn  my  honour  upon  the  truth  of  every  article." 

A  cluster  of  these  and  many  other  stars  formed,  in 
1754,  a  constellation  known  as  the  Select  Society,  an 
institution,  as  we  learn  from  Dugald  Stewart's  life  of 
Robertson,  "  intended  partly  for  philosophical  inquiry, 
and  partly  for  the  improvement  of  the  members  in 
public  speaking."  It  was  projected,  he  says,  by  Mr. 
Allan  Ramsay,  the  painter,  and  a  few  of  his  friends 
— Dr.  Robertson,  Mr.  David  Hume,  Mr.  Adam  Smith, 
Mr.  Wedderburn  (afterwards  Lord  Chancellor),  Lord 
Karnes,  Mr.  John  Home,  Dr.  Carlyle,  and  Sir  Gilbert 
Elliot.  Hailes,  Monboddo,  and  Dalrymple  were  also 
members.  In  the  Select  Society,  writes  Stewart, 
"the  most  splendid  talents  that  have  ever  adorned 
this  country  were  roused  to  their  best  exertions  by 
the  liberal  and  ennobling  discussions  of  literature  and 
philosophy." 

When  the  projectors  met  in  May  1754,  Smith,  who 
had  come  from  Glasgow,  was  required  to  explain 
the  proposals.  At  the  second  meeting,  as  appears 
from  the  minutes  now  preserved  in  the  Advocates' 
Library  at  Edinburgh,  he  was  "  Presses, "  and  gave  out 
as  subjects  for  the  next  debate  (1)  whether  a  general 
naturalisation  of  Foreign  Protestantism  would  be 
advantageous  to  Britain;  and  (2)  whether  bounties 
on  the  exportation  of  corn  would  be  advantageous  to 
manufactures  as  well  as  to  agriculture. 

Many  economic  questions  such  as  pauperism,  slavery, 
hiring,  banking,  export  bounties  on  linen,  rent,  leases, 
highways,  the  relative  advantages  of  large  and  small 


106  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

farms,  were  discussed  by  a  society  which,  in  Stewart's 
words,  contributed  so  much  to  the  fame  and  improve- 
ment of  Scotland.  A  year  after  its  foundation  Hume 
•wrote  to  Allan  Ramsay  that  it  had  grown  to  be  a  national 
concern.  "  Young  and  old,  noble  and  ignoble,  witty  and 
dull,  laity  and  clergy,  all  the  world  are  ambitious  of  a 
place  amongst  us,  and  on  each  occasion  we  are  as  much 
solicited  by  candidates  as  if  we  were  to  choose  a  member 
of  Parliament."  The  society  did  more  than  debate. 
Adam  Smith  and  eight  others  were  appointed  managers 
to  carry  out  a  scheme  for  the  promotion  of  Scottish 
arts,  sciences,  manufactures,  and  agriculture.  Executive 
committees  were  formed.  Contributions  poured  in ; 
and  prizes  and  premiums  large  in  those  days  were 
offered  and  awarded  for  every  subject  under  the  sun. 
From  the  researches  of  Mr.  Rae  we  learn,  for  example, 
that  twenty-six  prizes  were  offered  in  the  first  year 
(1755),  including  three  gold  medals  for  the  best  dis- 
covery in  science,  the  best  essay  on  taste,  and  the  best 
on  vegetation.  Six  silver  medals  were  given,  including 
one  for  the  best  and  most  correctly  printed  book, 
another  for  the  best  imitation  of  English  blankets,  and 
a  third  for  the  best  hogshead  of  strong  ale.  Four 
years  later  the  number  of  prizes  given  had  increased  to 
142,  and  they  included  one  for  the  person  who  cured 
most  smoky  chimneys. 

The  society  sank  as  suddenly  as  it  rose.  After 
only  a  decade  of  brilliant  usefulness,  the  meteor  fell, 
and  expired,  it  is  said,  in  a  flash  of  Townshend's  wit. 
"  Why,"  he  asked,  after  listening  to  a  debate  rich  in 
eloquence,  but  unintelligible  to  a  southern  ear,  "  why 
can  you  not  learn  to  speak  the  English  language  as 
you  have  already  learned  to  write  it  ? "     So  the  society 


vi.]  GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  107 

died,  and  Thomas  Sheridan,  father  of  the  statesman, 
came  to  Edinburgh  with  a  course  of  lectures  on  English 
elocution,  which  he  delivered  to  about  three  hundred 
eminent  gentlemen  in  Carrubber's  Close. 

Upon  the  ashes  of  this  famous  society  arose  an  equally 
patriotic  but  perhaps  less  beneficent  organisation.  The 
Poker  Club,  as  its  name  indicated,  was  intended  to  be 
an  instrument  for  stirring  opinion.  The  cause  to  be 
agitated  was  the  establishment  of  a  Scotch  Militia  on 
national  lines,  to  be  followed,  as  some  of  its  radical 
members  hoped,  by  a  parliamentary  reform  which 
would  "let  the  industrious  farmer  and  manufacturer 
share  at  last  in  a  privilege  now  engrossed  by  the  great 
lord,  the  drunken  laird,  and  the  drunkener  bailie." 

Adam  Smith  was  one  of  the  original  members  of  the 
Poker  Club,  which  gathered  in  most  of  the  Select 
Society ;  but  before  1776  he  had  changed  his  opinions, 
for,  in  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  he  comes  to  the  conclusion 
that  "  it  is  only  by  means  of  a  well  regulated  standing 
army  that  a  civilised  country  can  be  defended."  If  it 
relied  for  its  defence  on  a  militia,  it  would  be  exposed 
to  conquest.  The  militia  movement  is  mentioned  by 
Smith  in  a  letter  to  Strahan  (April  4,  1760),  in  the 
course  of  some  reflections  suggested  by  the  Memoirs  of 
Colonel  Hooke.  The  passage  is  interesting  as  a  Scotch 
Whig's  explanation  and  defence  of  the  disaffection 
which  prevailed  north  of  the  Tweed  in  the  early  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century  : — 

"Apropos  to  the  Pope  and  the  Pretender,  have  you  read 
Hook's  Memoirs  1  I  have  been  ill  these  ten  days,  otherwise  I 
should  have  written  to  you  sooner,  but  I  sat  up  the  day  before 
yesterday  in  my  bed  and  read  them  thro'  with  infinite  satisfac- 
tion, tho'  they  are  by  no  means  well  written.     The  substance 


108  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

of  what  is  in  them  I  knew  before,  tho'  not  in  such  detail.  I 
am  afraid  they  are  published  at  an  unlucky  time,  and  may 
throw  a  damp  upon  our  militia.  Nothing,  however,  appears 
to  me  more  excusable  than  the  disaffection  of  Scotland  at  that 
time.  The  Union  was  a  measure  from  which  infinite  good  has 
been  derived  to  this  country.  The  Prospect  of  that  good, 
however,  must  then  have  appeared  very  remote  and  very  un- 
certain. The  immediate  effect  of  it  was  to  hurt  the  interest  of 
every  single  order  of  men  in  the  country.  The  dignity  of  the 
nobility  was  undone  by  it.  The  greater  part  of  the  gentry 
who  had  been  accustomed  to  represent  their  own  country  in 
its  own  Parliament  were  cut  out  for  ever  from  all  hopes  of 
representing  it  in  a  British  Parliament.  Even  the  merchants 
seemed  to  suffer  at  first.  The  trade  to  the  Plantations  was, 
indeed,  opened  to  them.  But  that  was  a  trade  which  they 
knew  nothing  about  ;  the  trade  they  were  acquainted  with, 
that  to  France,  Holland,  and  the  Baltic,  was  laid  under  new 
embar[r]assments,  which  almost  totally  annihilated  the  two 
first  and  most  important  branches  of  it.  The  Clergy,  too,  who 
were  then  far  from  insignificant,  were  alarmed  about  the 
Church.  No  wonder  if  at  that  time  all  orders  of  men  con- 
spired in  cursing  a  measure  hurtful  to  their  immediate  interest. 
The  views  of  their  Posterity  are  now  very  different ;  but  those 
views  could  be  seen  by  but  few  of  our  forefathers,  by  those  few 
in  but  a  confused  and  imperfect  manner." 

In  the  same  letter  he  asks  to  be  remembered  to 
Benjamin  Franklin  (who  had  lately  visited  Glasgow), 
and  also  to  Griffiths,  the  editor  of  the  Monthly  Review, 
which  had  just  paid  a  handsome  tribute  to  the  Theory. 

In  the  notes  of  lectures,  given  as  we  have  seen 
about  the  time  when  the  Poker  Club  was  established, 
Smith  admitted  the  necessity  of  a  standing  army, 
but  seems  to  have  thought  that  its  abuse  should  be 
guarded  against  by  a  militia.  The  Poker  Club  proved 
little  more  than  a  convivial  society,  and  felt  the 
scarcity  and  dearness  of  claret  more  than  the  want  of 


vi.]  GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  109 

a  national  army.  Lord  Campbell  says  that  when  the 
duty  on  French  wine  was  raised  to  pay  for  the 
American  War,  they  "agreed  to  dissolve  the  'Poker,' 
and  to  form  another  society  which  should  exist  with- 
out consumption  of  any  excisable  commodity."  When 
the  duties  were  again  reduced  by  Pitt's  French  Treaty 
in  1786,  a  Younger  Poker  Club  arose,  but  Pitt's 
master,  who  had  contributed  so  substantially  to  this 
revival  of  patriotism,  was  too  old  or  too  indifferent  to 
become  a  member. 

In  one  other  important  Edinburgh  project  the 
Glasgow  professor  played  a  prominent  part.  In  1755 
an  Edinburgh  Review  was  started  to  supply  the  rising 
authors  of  North  Britain  with  the  stimulus  of  sympa- 
thetic criticism.  Wedderburn,  then  a  young  advocate, 
was  chosen  editor ;  Robertson  and  Smith  were  contri- 
butors in  chief.  But  only  two  numbers  appeared  of  this 
precursor  in  name  and  in  intention  of  the  most  famous 
and  successful  review  ever  launched  in  our  islands. 
Smith's  two  articles  are  of  considerable,  although  of 
unequal,  interest.  The  first  and  less  important  is  a 
review  of  Dr.  Johnson's  Dictionary.  "  When  we  com- 
pare this  book  with  other  dictionaries,"  writes  the 
critic,  "the  merit  of  its  author  appears  very  extra- 
ordinary." In  previous  English  dictionaries  the  chief 
purpose  had  been  to  explain  hard  words  and  terms  of 
art;  "Mr.  Johnson  has  extended  his  views  much  further, 
and  has  made  a  very  full  collection  of  all  the  different 
meanings  of  each  English  word,  justified  by  examples 
from  authors  of  good  reputation."  The  defects  of  the 
work  consisted  chiefly  in  the  plan,  which  was  not 
sufficiently  grammatical.  To  show  what  he  meant  he 
took  Johnson's  articles  on  but  and  humour,  appending 


110  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

more  philosophical  and  lucid  articles  of  his  own. 
Johnson  seems  to  have  taken  no  notice  of  these 
criticisms  in  later  editions  of  the  dictionary.  "We  may- 
observe  in  passing  that  Smith's  but  is  better  than  his 
humour.  He  seems  singularly  mistaken  when  he 
observes  that  "  a  man  of  wit  is  as  much  above  a  man 
of  humour  as  a  gentleman  is  above  a  buffoon."  In 
Scotland,  he  thinks,  the  usefulness  of  the  Dictionary 
will  soon  be  felt,  "  as  there  is  no  standard  of  correct 
language  in  conversation." 

A  far  more  remarkable  contribution  is  a  letter  to 
the  editors,  which  appeared  in  the  second  number. 
It  is  a  protest  against  the  reviewers  confining  them- 
selves to  accounts  of  books  published  in  Scotland,  a 
country  "which  is  but  just  beginning  to  attempt 
figuring  in  the  learned  world."  He  proposes  therefore 
that  they  should  enlarge  their  scope,  and  observe 
with  regard  to  Europe  the  same  plan  that  was  being 
followed  with  regard  to  England,  that  is  to  say, 
examine  all  books  of  permanent  value  while  contriving 
to  take  notice  "of  every  Scotch  production  that  is 
tolerably  decent."  Smith  illustrated  his  plea  by  a  very 
luminous  and  masterly  survey  of  French  literature,  and 
a  comparison  of  the  French,  German,  and  Italian 
genius  with  the  English. 

The  review  was  intended  to  appear  every  six  months, 
but  it  never  reached  a  third  number,  either  because  it 
was  not  well  received  by  the  public,  or  because  a  for- 
midable theologian  spied  heresy  lurking  in  its  pages. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  General  Assembly  was 
proposing  to  pass  a  censure  on  Hume's  Enquiry  con- 
cerning the  Principles  of  Morals,  and  to  excommunicate 
the  author.     Hume  wrote  to  Allan  Ramsay  in  Rome : 


vi.]  GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  111 

"You  may  tell  that  reverend  gentleman  the  Pope, 
that  there  are  men  here  who  rail  at  him,  and  yet  would 
be  much  greater  persecutors  had  they  equal  power. 
The  last  Assembly  sat  on  me.  They  did  not  propose 
to  burn  me,  because  they  cannot,  but  they  intended  to 
give  me  over  to  Satan.  My  friends  prevailed,  and  my 
damnation  has  accordingly  been  postponed  a  twelve- 
month, but  next  Assembly  will  surely  be  upon  me." 
Lord  Karnes  was  also  attacked;  but  Smith  seems  to 
have  escaped,  though  his  turn  was  to  come  later. 

The  pupil  of  Hutcheson  was  also  in  many  ways  the 
philosophical  disciple  and  ally  of  Hume.  Their  in- 
tercourse during  all  these  years  was  close  and  constant. 
They  paid  mutual  visits,  and  interchanged  many 
letters,  too  few  of  which  have  been  preserved.  Hume 
had  been  abroad,  or  at  Nine  wells,  during  most  of 
Smith's  stay  in  Edinburgh,  and  had  only  just  made 
Edinburgh  his  home  when  Smith  obtained  the  pro- 
fessorship at  Glasgow;  but,  as  Mr.  Rae  notes,  before 
a  year  was  out,  Smith's  "  dear  sir "  had  ripened  into 
"my  dearest  friend,"  and  on  these  terms  the  two 
philosophers  remained  until  death  parted  them. 

We  have  seen  how  in  the  spring  of  1759  Charles 
Townshend  was  much  taken  with  the  Theory  of  Moral 
Sentiments,  and  told  Oswald  he  would  put  his  young 
ward  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch  under  the  author's  care. 
Hume  did  not  at  first  believe  that  Townshend  would 
persevere,  or  if  he  did,  that  he  would  offer  such  terms 
as  would  tempt  Smith  from  Glasgow.  But  on  this 
occasion  he  was  in  earnest  and  never  relinquished  the 
idea,  anxious,  it  is  said,  to  connect  the  fleeting  fame  of 
a  parliamentarian  with  the  lasting  renown  of  a  philo- 
sopher.     Townshend     had     married     the     widowed 


112  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Countess  of  Dalkeith.  Her  eldest  son,  the  Duke  of 
Buccleuch,  was  then  a  boy  at  Eton,  under  Hallam, 
father  of  the  historian.  The  time  when  his  stepson 
would  leave  school  was  still  distant,  but  Townshend 
had  made  up  his  mind  to  send  the  boy  abroad.  In 
England  it  was  becoming  more  and  more  the  fashion 
for  the  sons  of  the  nobility  to  travel  abroad  when  they 
left  school,  instead  of  going  to  one  of  the  universi- 
ties. It  was  thought  that  they  returned  home  much 
improved  by  their  travels,  and  with  some  knowledge 
of  one  or  two  living  languages,  whereas  if  they  went  to 
Oxford  or  Cambridge  they  would  learn  nothing  but 
idleness  and  dissipation.  Adam  Smith  himself  after- 
wards came  to  the  conclusion  that  foreign  travel  was 
no  substitute  for  a  sound  university  training.  The 
schoolboy,  he  wrote  after  his  continental  tour,  "com- 
monly returns  home  more  conceited,  more  unprincipled, 
more  dissipated,  and  more  incapable  of  any  serious 
application  either  to  study  or  business,  than  he  could 
well  have  become  in  so  short  a  time  had  he  lived  at 
home.  .  .  .  Nothing  but  the  discredit  into  which  the 
universities  had  fallen  could  ever  have  brought  into 
repute  so  very  absurd  a  practice." 1 

In  the  summer  of  1759  Townshend  went  to  see  Smith 
at  Glasgow,  and  apparently  prevailed,  for  in  the  follow- 
ing September  Smith  wrote  to  him  about  some  books 
which  he  had  been  getting  for  Buccleuch,  as  if  he  were 
already  in  the  position  of  an  educational  adviser  to  the 
boy.  As  might  have  been  expected  of  one  whom 
Burke  immortalised  as  "the  delight  and  ornament 
of  the  House,  and  the  charm  of  every  private  society 
which  he  honoured  with  his  presence,"  Townshend 
1   Wealth  of  Nations  (1776),  Book  v.  chap.  i.  art.  2. 


vi.]  GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  113 

captivated  Glasgow.      "Everybody    here    remembers 
you  with  the  greatest  admiration  and  affection." 

Smith  was  doubtless  informed  from  time  to  time  of 
the  boy's  progress,  but  we  hear  no  more  of  the  subject 
for  four  years.  In  the  early  part  of  1763  he  invited 
Hume  to  pay  a  visit  to  Glasgow.  Hume  was  then  in 
Edinburgh ;  he  had  just  brought  out  two  volumes  of 
his  History,  and  was  drinking  the  nectar  of  general 
applause.  At  the  end  of  March  he  replied  with  a 
bantering  reference,  perhaps,  to  his  friend's  economic 
studies:  "I  set  up  a  chaise  in  May  next,  which  will 
give  me  the  liberty  of  travelling  about,  and  you  may 
be  sure  a  journey  to  Glasgow  will  be  one  of  the  first  I 
shall  undertake.  I  intend  to  require  with  great  strict- 
ness an  account  how  you  have  been  employing  your 
leisure,  and  I  desire  you  to  be  ready  for  that  purpose. 
Woe  be  to  you  if  the  Balance  be  against  you.  Your 
friends  here  will  also  expect  that  I  should  bring  you 
with  me.  It  seems  to  me  very  long  since  I  saw  you." 
But  in  the  summer  Lord  Hertford  was  appointed 
Ambassador  to  the  Court  of  France,  and  Hume  ac- 
cepted the  post  of  Secretary  to  the  British  Embassy  at 
Paris,  "with  great  prospects  and  expectations."  He 
told  his  friend  not  to  expect  him  back  for  some  time ; 
"but  we  may  meet  abroad."  And  so  they  did;  for,  a 
couple  of  months  later,  Smith  received  the  following 
letter : — 

"  Dear  Sir, — The  time  now  drawing  near  when  the  Duke 
of  Buccleugh  intends  to  go  abroad,  I  take  the  liberty  of 
renewing  the  subject  to  you  :  that  if  you  should  still  have  the 
same  disposition  to  travel  with  him  I  may  have  the  satis- 
faction of  informing  Lady  Dalkeith  and  his  Grace  of  it,  and  of 
congratulating  them  upon  an  event  which  I  know  that  they, 
as  well  as  myself,  have  so  much  at  heart.     The  Duke  is  now 

H 


114  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

at  Eton  ;  he  will  remain  there  till  Christmas.  He  will  then 
spend  some  short  time  in  London,  that  he  may  be  presented 
at  Court,  and  not  pass  instantaneously  from  school  to  a 
foreign  country,  but  it  were  to  be  wished  he  should  not  be 
long  in  Town,  exposed  to  the  habits  and  companions  of 
London,  before  his  mind  has  been  more  formed  and  better 
guarded  by  education  and  experience. 

"  I  do  not  enter  at  this  moment  upon  the  subject  of  estab- 
lishment, because,  if  you  have  no  objection  to  the  situation,  I 
know  we  cannot  differ  about  the  terms.  On  the  contrary, 
you  will  find  me  more  solicitous  than  yourself  to  make  the 
connection  with  Buccleugh  as  satisfactory  and  advantageous 
to  you  as  I  am  persuaded  it  will  be  essentially  beneficial  to 
him. 

"  The  Duke  .  .  .  has  sufficient  talents  ;  a  very  manly  temper, 
and  an  integrity  of  heart  and  reverence  for  truth,  which  in  a 
person  of  his  rank  and  fortune  are  the  firmest  foundations  of 
weight  in  life  and  uniform  greatness.  If  it  should  be  agree- 
able to  you  to  finish  his  education  and  mould  these  excellent 
materials  into  a  settled  character,  I  make  no  doubt  that  he 
will  return  to  his  family  and  country  the  very  man  our 
fondest  hopes  have  fancied  him. 

"  I  go  to  Town  next  Friday,  and  should  be  obliged  to  you 
for  your  answer  to  this  letter. — I  am,  with  sincere  affection 
and  esteem,  dear  sir  your  most  faithful  and  most  obedient 
humble  servant,  C.  Townshend. 

Adderbuby,  25th  October  1763." 

The  offer  was  accepted,  and  an  arrangement  con- 
cluded, in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view  certainly  "  satis- 
factory and  advantageous."  Smith  was  to  have  a 
salary  of  £300  a  year  with  travelling  expenses,  and  a 
pension  of  £300  a  year  for  life.  He  was  thus  to  enjoy, 
as  Mr.  Rae  says,  twice  his  Glasgow  income,  and  to 
have  it  assured  till  death.  Altogether,  Smith  drew 
more  than  £8000  from  his  three  years'  tutorship.  On 
November  8th,  "Dr.  Smith  represented,"  so  runs  the 


vi.]  GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  115 

record  of  the  Faculty,  "  that  some  interesting  business 
would  probably  require  his  leaving  the  College  some 
time  this  winter",  and  he  was  thereuoon  granted 
leave  of  absence  for  three  months. 

For  some  time,  however,  Smith  heard  nothing  more. 
In  the  middle  of  December,  when  he  wrote  to  tell  Hume 
of  Townshend's  letter,  he  was  still  in  uncertainty.  But 
a  few  days  afterwards  it  was  arranged  that  they  should 
start  early  in  the  new  year,  and  on  January  the  9th 
Smith  told  the  Faculty  that  he  should  make  use  of 
his  leave  of  absence,  that  he  should  pay  his  deputy  his 
half-year's  salary  commencing  from  October  the  10th, 
and  that  he  had  returned  all  his  students'  fees.  This 
last  act  of  liberality  he  was  only  able  to  carry  out  by 
a  display  of  violence  at  the  end  of  his  last  lecture. 
The  scene  has  luckily  been  reproduced  with  unusual  ani- 
mation by  the  pen  of  Tytler,  Lord  Karnes's  pedestrian 
biographer.  After  concluding  his  last  lecture,  and 
describing  the  arrangements  he  had  made  for  them,  "he 
drew  from  his  pocket  the  several  fees  of  the  students, 
wrapped  up  in  separate  paper  parcels,  and  beginning 
to  call  up  each  man  by  his  name,  he  delivered  to  the 
first  who  was  called  the  money  into  his  hand.  The 
young  man  peremptorily  refused  to  accept  it,  declaring 
that  the  instruction  and  pleasure  he  had  already 
received  was  much  more  than  he  either  had  repaid  or 
ever  could  compensate ;  and  a  general  cry  was  heard 
from  every  one  in  the  room  to  the  same  effect.  But 
Mr.  Smith  was  not  to  be  bent  from  his  purpose.  After 
warmly  expressing  his  feelings  of  gratitude  and  the 
strong  sense  he  had  of  the  regard  shown  to  him  by  his 
young  friends,  he  told  them  this  was  a  matter  betwixt 
him  and  his  own  mind,  and  that  he  could  not  rest 


116  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

satisfied  unless  he  performed  what  he  deemed  right 
and  proper.  'You  must  not  refuse  me  this  satisfac- 
tion ;  nay,  by  heavens,  gentlemen,  you  shall  not ' ;  and 
seizing  by  the  coat  the  young  man  who  stood  next  to 
him,  he  thrust  the  money  into  his  pocket  and  then 
pushed  him  from  him.  The  rest  saw  it  was  in  vain  to 
contest  the  matter,  and  were  obliged  to  let  him  take 
his  own  way." l 

Scotch  professors  at  that  time  often  continued  to 
hold  their  chairs  during  a  temporary  appointment  like 
a  travelling  tutorship,  and  paid  their  salaries  to  a 
substitute  until  they  returned.  But  Smith  was  no 
friend  of  absenteeism.  The  interest  of  the  College  was 
his  chief  anxiety,  and  accordingly  in  the  following 
month  he  sent  his  formal  letter  of  resignation  to  the 
Lord  Rector,  immediately  on  his  arrival  in  Paris.  "  I 
never  was,"  he  writes,  "more  anxious  for  the  good  of 
the  College  than  at  this  moment ;  and  I  sincerely  wish 
that  whoever  is  my  successor  may  not  only  do  credit 
to  the  office  by  his  abilities,  but  be  a  comfort  to  the 
very  excellent  men  with  whom  he  is  likely  to  spend 
his  life,  by  the  probity  of  his  heart  and  the  goodness 
of  his  temper."     (February  14,  1764.) 

In  accepting  his  resignation  the  Senate  added  a  few 
words  which  may  fittingly  conclude  our  account  of 
what  Smith  always  regarded  as  the  most  fruitful  and 
honourable  period  of  his  life  : — "  The  University  cannot 
help  at  the  same  time  expressing  their  sincere  regret 
at  the  removal  of  Dr.  Smith,  whose  distinguished 
probity  and  amiable  qualities  procured  him  the  esteem 
and  affection  of  his  colleagues;  whose  uncommon 
genius,  great  abilities,  and  extensive  learning  did  so 
1  Tytler's  Karnes,  i.  p.  278. 


vi.]  GLASGOW  AND  ITS  UNIVERSITY  117 

much  honour  to  this  society ;  his  elegant  and  ingenious 
Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments  having  recommended  him  to 
the  esteem  of  men  of  taste  and  literature  throughout 
Europe.  His  happy  talents  in  illustrating  abstracted 
subjects,  and  faithful  assiduity  in  communicating  use- 
ful knowledge,  distinguished  him  as  a  professor,  and  at 
once  afforded  the  greatest  pleasure  and  the  most  im- 
portant instruction  to  the  youth  under  his  care." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,    1764-66 

"  Everything  I  see  appears  the  throwing  broadcast  of 
the  seed  of  a  revolution,"  wrote  Voltaire  to  Chauvelin, 
a  few  weeks  after  Smith  landed  in  France.  While  the 
poor  grew  poorer,  administration  worse,  taxes  more 
oppressive,  that  thick  cloud  of  conventional  darkness 
which  had  so  long  shrouded  misgovernment  was  dis- 
persing, irradiated  by  the  fierce  glare  of  an  intellectual 
illumination  such  as  the  world  had  never  seen  before. 
Already  the  mind  of  France  was  undimmed.  Voltaire's 
search-light  had  shown  the  nakedness  of  Church  and 
State.  Diderot's  great  lamp  was  fixed;  Rousseau 
waved  his  fiery  torch,  beaconing  oppressed  civilisation 
back  to  the  freedom  of  its  cradle.  Quesnai  was  at  his 
patient  calculations  in  the  Royal  Palace.  The  great 
Encyclopaedia  itself  was  on  the  eve  of  completion. 

This  gigantic  work — in  thirty-five  folio  volumes,  of 
which  the  first  appeared  in  1751 — was  doubly  English ; 
for  it  was  inspired  by  Lord  Bacon's  plan  for  a  universal 
dictionary  of  sciences  and  arts,  and  it  began  as  a  mere 
translation  of  the  Cyclopaedia  which  Ephraim  Chambers 
had  published  in  1727. 

One  of  the  first  of  our  writers  to  study,  perhaps 
the  first  to  weigh  and  measure  the  importance  of  the 
Encyclopaedia,  was  Adam  Smith.     He  seems  to  have 

118 


chap,  vii.]     THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  119 

read  it  from  the  outset.  In  his  letter  to  the  Edinburgh 
Review  he  called  it  the  most  complete  work  of  the  kind 
ever  attempted  in  any  language.  He  there  noticed 
that  D'Alembert's  preliminary  discourse  upon  the  gene- 
alogy and  filiation  of  arts  and  sciences  was  nearly  the 
same  as  that  of  Lord  Bacon,  that  the  separate  articles 
were  not  dry  abstracts  of  what  is  commonly  known  by 
a  superficial  student,  but  "  a  compleat,  reasoned,  and 
even  critical  examination  of  each  subject."  Its  pages 
bore  testimony  to  the  triumphant  progress  of  English 
philosophy  and  science  in  France.  The  ideas  of  Bacon, 
Boyle,  and  Newton  were  explained  with  that  order, 
perspicuity,  and  judgment  which  distinguished  all  the 
eminent  writers  of  France.  "  As  since  the  Union  we 
are  apt  to  regard  ourselves  in  some  measure  as  the 
countrymen  of  those  great  men,  it  flattered  my  vanity 
as  a  Briton  to  observe  the  superiority  of  the  English 
philosophy  thus  acknowledged  by  their  rival  nation." 
It  seems,  Smith  added,  "to  be  the  peculiar  talent  of 
the  French  nation  to  arrange  every  subject  in  that 
natural  and  simple  order  which  carries  the  attention 
without  any  effort  along  with  it." 

Smith  was  himself  by  nature  and  habit  an  Encyclo- 
paedist, not  inferior  even  to  Diderot  in  his  grasp  of  the 
whole  field  of  science.  Wanting  the  laborious  industry 
of  the  compiler,  he  was  the  equal  perhaps  of  his  French 
contemporaries  in  the  power  of  correlating  knowledge 
and  combining  truth.  But  he  yielded  to  none  in 
admiration  of  the  Encyclopaedia,  and  commended  it  to 
English  readers  by  translating  the  magnificent  eulogy 
bestowed  on  it  by  Voltaire  in  the  conclusion  of  his 
account  of  the  artists  who  lived  in  the  time  of  Louis 
the  Fourteenth : — 


120  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

"The  last  age  has  put  the  present  in  a  condition  to 
assemble  into  one  body  and  to  transmit  to  posterity, 
to  be  by  them  delivered  down  to  remoter  ages,  the 
sacred  repository  of  all  the  arts  and  all  the  sciences, 
all  of  them  pushed  as  far  as  human  industry  can  go. 
This  is  what  a  society  of  learned  men,  fraught  with 
genius  and  knowledge,  are  now  labouring  upon,  an 
immense  and  immortal  work  which  accuses  the  short- 
ness of  human  life." 

The  Encyclopaedists'  doctrine  of  the  perfectibility  of 
man  was  the  rational  basis  of  Smith's  incurable  optimism, 
but  he  did  not  share  the  opinion  of  the  French  School 
that  an  absolute  monarchy  is  the  most  hopeful  if  not 
the  only  vehicle  of  human  progress.  Quesnai  and  his 
disciples  never  dreamed  that  people  could  govern 
themselves;  they  conjured  up  an  ideal  monarch 
who  would  let  his  people  live  in  a  state  of  natural 
liberty.  Adam  Smith  had  faith  in  men  as  well  as 
in  philosophy,  and  therefore  his  politics  were  not 
for  his  own  age  only  but  for  the  time  to  come.  A 
Whig  in  practice  and  a  Republican  in  theory,  he  was 
not  likely  to  sympathise  with  the  idea  that  natural 
liberty  is  to  be  enjoyed  under  a  despot. 

One  critic  expresses  surprise  that  so  close  an 
observer  had  not  the  sagacity  to  anticipate  the  down- 
fall of  the  French  Monarchy.  But  Turgot's  dismissal, 
which  first  made  Voltaire  despair  of  a  peaceful  refor- 
mation, occurred  two  months  after  the  publication  of 
the  Wealth  of  Nations,  and  ten  years  after  its  author's 
return  to  England.  Nay,  at  the  time  when  the  finish- 
ing touches  were  being  given  to  that  work,  it  might 
have  been  a  fair  question  whether  Turgot's  reforms 
were   less  likely   to   save  France  than  Lord  North's 


vii.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  121 

policy  to  enslave  England.  In  any  case,  it  was  not  for 
a  foreigner  to  play  Cassandra  to  the  Bourbons.  But 
it  will  be  shown  that  the  author  of  the  Wealth  of 
Nations  was  under  no  illusions  as  to  the  wretched  state 
of  the  French  peasant,  the  misgovernment  of  the 
kingdom,  and  its  fiscal  disorganisation. 

The  tutor  and  his  pupil  arrived  in  Paris  on  February 
13,  1764,  and,  after  ten  days  with  Hume,  they  pro- 
ceeded to  Toulouse,  which  still  preserved  the  dignity 
of  a  provincial  capital,  with  a  parliament,  a  university, 
and  an  archbishopric.  The  nobility  and  notables  of 
Languedoc  spent  the  winter  there,  and  it  was  also  a 
favourite  resort  of  English  visitors,  probably  because  it 
combined  a  good  climate  with  agreeable  society.  Its 
advocates  vied  with  those  of  Paris.  As  a  social  and 
intellectual  centre  it  might  be  denominated  the  Edin- 
burgh of  France.  Its  political  importance  is  marked  in 
the  Wealth  of  Nations,  where  Adam  Smith  describes  the 
parliament  of  Toulouse  as  being  "in  rank  and  dignity 
the  second  parliament  of  the  kingdom."  Fortunately 
for  the  two  Scots,  a  cousin  of  Hume,  the  Abbe  Seignelay 
Colbert,  was  at  that  time  Vicar-General  of  the  diocese. 
Colbert  was  of  the  same  family  as  the  great  minister, 
and  doubtless  owed  his  success  in  the  G-allican  Church 
to  that  connection.  Hume's  personal  popularity  in 
Paris  was  enormous,  and  his  letters  of  introduction, 
which  he  wrote  or  procured,  were  everywhere  of  service 
to  the  travellers.  The  Abb6,  immediately  on  their 
arrival,  promised  Hume  he  would  do  all  that  he  could 
to  make  their  stay  agreeable.  After  a  month  he  was 
full  of  enthusiasm  for  his  new  friends : — "  Mr.  Smith 
is  a  sublime  man.  His  heart  and  his  mind  are  equally 
admirable.  .  .  .  The  Duke,  his  pupil,  is  a  very  amiable 


122  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

spirit,    and   does   his   exercises  well,   and    is   making 
progress  in  French." 

The  Abbe  was  a  man  of  liberal  ideas.  Promoted  to 
the  bishopric  of  Rodez,  he  tried  to  assist  the  agricul- 
ture and  manufactures  of  his  diocese,  and  even  had 
a  momentary  popularity  in  Paris  in  the  year  of  the 
Revolution  (1789),  when  as  a  member  of  the  States- 
General  he  proposed  the  union  of  the  clergy  with  the 
Third  Estate.  The  Archbishop  of  Toulouse  at  this 
time  was  the  famous  Lomenie  de  Brienne,  an  old 
friend  of  Turgot  and  Morellet,  and  so  far  a  disciple  of 
their  economic  principles  that  he  persuaded  the  States 
of  Languedoc  to  adopt  free  trade  in  corn.  But,  as  Mr. 
Rae  observes,  he  could  not  have  been  very  friendly  to 
Smith  ;  for  afterwards,  when  Cardinal  and  Minister  of 
France,  he  refused  Morellet  a  hundred  louis  to  defray 
the  cost  of  printing  his  translation  of  the  Wealth  of 
Nations.  In  spite  of  Colbert's  kindness,  the  early 
months  at  Toulouse  dragged  heavily,  and  the  Duke 
proved  at  first  an  exacting  companion.  On  July  5th, 
Smith  sent  a  rather  lugubrious  and  petulant  letter 
to  Hume  : — 

"I  should  be  much  obliged  to  you  if  you  could  send  us 
recommendations  to  the  Duke  of  Kichelieu,  the  Marquis  de 
Lorges,  and  the  Intendant  of  the  Province.  Mr.  Townshend 
assured  me  that  the  Due  de  Choiseul  was  to  recommend 
us  to  all  the  people  of  fashion  here  and  everywhere  else  in 
France.  We  have  heard  nothing,  however,  of  these  recom- 
mendations, and  have  had  our  way  to  make  as  "well  as  we 
could  by  the  help  of  the  Abb£,  who  is  a  stranger  here 
almost  as  much  as  we.  The  progress  indeed  we  have  made  is 
not  very  great.  The  Duke  is  acquainted  with  no  Frenchman 
whatever.  I  cannot  cultivate  the  acquaintance  of  the  few 
with  whom  I  am  acquainted,  as  I  cannot  bring  them  to  our 


vii.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  123 

house,  and  am  not  always  at  liberty  to  go  to  theirs.  The  life 
which  I  led  at  Glasgow  was  a  pleasurable  dissipated  life 
in  comparison  of  that  which  I  lead  here  at  Present.  I  have 
begun  to  write  a  book  in  order  to  pass  away  the  time." 

The  world  has  no  reason  to  regret  this  want  of 
gaiety,  for  the  book  which  Smith  had  begun  in  order 
to  "pass  away  the  time  "  was  no  other  than  the  Wealth 
of  Nations.  At  Bordeaux,  Adam  Smith,  his  pupil  and 
the  Abbe  met  Colonel  Barr6,  who  wrote  from  that 
town  to  Hume  on  September  the  4th  : — 

"I  thank  you  for  your  last  letter  from  Paris,  which  I 
received  just  as  Smith  and  his  Sieve  and  l'Abbe  Colbert  were 
sitting  down  to  dine  with  me  at  Bordeaux.  The  latter  is  a 
very  honest  fellow,  and  deserves  to  be  a  bishop  ;  make  him 
one  if  you  can.  .  .  .  Smith  agrees  with  me  in  thinking  that 
you  are  turned  soft  by  the  delices  of  the  French  Court,  and 
that  you  don't  write  in  that  nervous  manner  you  was  remark- 
able for  in  the  more  northern  climates." 

From  this  time  all  went  smoothly.  Hume  got  them 
introductions  from  his  chief,  Lord  Hertford,  the  British 
Ambassador,  to  the  Due  de  Richelieu  and  others. 

On  the  21st  of  October  they  were  again  in  Toulouse, 
and  Smith  wrote  in  good  spirits  to  thank  Hume  for 
his  kindness  and  the  Ambassador  "for  the  very 
honourable  manner  in  which  he  was  so  good  as  to 
mention  me  to  the  Duke  of  Richelieu  in  the  letter  of 
recommendation  which  you  sent  us."     He  adds  : — 

"  There  was,  indeed,  one  small  mistake  in  it.  He  called  me 
Robinson  instead  of  Smith.  I  took  upon  me  to  correct  this 
mistake  myself  before  the  Duke  delivered  the  letter.  We 
were  all  treated  by  the  Marshal  with  the  utmost  Politeness 
and  attention,  particularly  the  Duke,  whom  he  distinguished 
in  a  very  proper  manner.  .  .  .  Our  expedition  to  Bordeaux 
and  another  we  have  made  since  to  Bagneres  has  made  a  great 


124  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

change  upon  the  Duke.  He  "begins  now  to  familiarise  himself 
to  French  company,  and  I  flatter  myself  I  shall  spend  the  rest 
of  the  time  we  are  to  live  together  not  only  in  peace  and  con- 
tentment, but  in  gayetty  and  amusement." 

They  went  to  Montpellier  to  see  the  meeting  of  the 
States  of  Languedoc,  the  most  important  of  the  six 
local  parliaments  still  remaining  in  France.  There  they 
met  Home  Tooke,  who  afterwards  called  the  Wealth  of 
Nations  wicked  and  the  Moral  Sentiments  nonsense,  and 
Cardinal  Dillon,  the  Archbishop  of  Narbonne,  another 
of  the  band  of  Gallicised  Scots. 

In  Montpellier  and  Toulouse  they  saw  many  mem- 
bers of  the  parliament,  and  obtained  an  insight  into  the 
legal  and  administrative  system  of  a  province  which 
enlightened  Frenchmen  were  fond  of  citing  as  a  model 
for  the  reformation  of  their  country.  Smith  took 
rather  a  favourable  view  of  French  justice.  The 
parliaments,  he  said,  "are  perhaps,  in  many  respects, 
not  very  convenient  courts  of  justice ;  but  they  have 
never  been  accused,  they  seem  never  even  to  have 
been  suspected,  of  corruption." 

But,  though  incorruptible,  the  Toulouse  Court  had 
been  guilty  of  one  scandalous  act  of  fanatical  injustice. 
In  1762  it  found  the  unfortunate  Jean  Calas,  a  Protes- 
tant, guilty  of  the  murder  of  his  son,  who  had  abjured 
his  faith  in  order  to  join  the  Toulouse  Bar,  and  then  in 
an  agony  of  remorse  had  committed  suicide  in  his 
father's  house.  Characteristically  Smith  did  not  allow 
this  foul  episode  to  distort  his  perspective.  In  his  last 
edition  of  the  Moral  Sentiments  the  story  is  told  as  one 
of  those  fatal  accidents  which  "happen  sometimes  in  all 
countries,  even  in  those  where  justice  is  in  general  very 
well  administered  " : — 


vii.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  125 

"  The  unfortunate  Calas,  a  man  of  much  more  than  ordinary 
constancy  (broke  upon  the  wheel  and  burnt  at  Toulouse  for 
the  supposed  murder  of  his  own  son,  of  which  he  was  per- 
fectly innocent),  seemed  with  his  last  breath  to  deprecate,  not 
so  much  the  cruelty  of  the  punishment,  as  the  disgrace  which 
the  imputation  might  bring  upon  his  memory.  After  he  had 
been  broke,  and  was  just  going  to  be  thrown  into  the  fire,  the 
monk,  who  attended  the  execution,  exhorted  him  to  confess 
the  crime  for  which  he  had  been  condemned.  '  My  Father,' 
said  Calas,  '  can  you  yourself  bring  yourself  to  believe  that  I 
am  guilty  ? ' " 

To  such  a  man,  he  thinks,  "humble  philosophy,  which 
confines  its  views  to  this  life,  can  afford  but  little  con- 
solation." He  must  seek  refuge  in  religion,  which  alone 
can  offer  him  a  prospect  of  another  world  of  more 
candour,  humanity,  and  justice.  But  justice  was  not 
allowed  to  sleep.  For  three  years  Voltaire  assailed  the 
ears  of  France  with  impassioned  argument.  Before 
Smith  left  Toulouse  a  new  trial  was  ordered,  and  fifty 
judges,  among  them  Turgot,  revised  the  sentence,  pro- 
nounced Calas  innocent,  relieved  his  family  from  infamy, 
and  awarded  them  a  large  sum  of  money. 

A  long  stay  in  Languedoc  would  necessarily  give  a 
foreigner  more  favourable  impressions  of  the  social  and 
economic  state  of  France  than  he  would  have  gained, 
say,  in  the  Limousin,  where  Turgot  was  doing  heroic 
battle  against  famine  and  maladministration.  Lan- 
guedoc, with  its  two  millions  of  inhabitants,  is  described 
by  Tocqueville  as  the  best-ordered  and  most  prosper- 
ous as  well  as  the  largest  of  all  the  pays  d'Mats.  Its 
roads,  made  and  repaired  without  a  corvde,  were  among 
the  best  in  France.  Smith  was  struck  by  the  great  canal 
of  Burgundy,  constructed  some  seventy  years  before  by 
Riquet  and  kept  in  good  repair  by  his  family,  and  he 


126  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

saw  the  province  incessantly  spending  money  on  de- 
veloping and  improving  its  roads  and  rivers.  The 
charitable  workhouses  established  at  the  royal  expense 
in  other  parts  of  France  had  not  been  required  in  this 
comparatively  happy  territory.  In  fiscal  system  and 
credit  Languedoc  was  incomparably  superior  to  the  rest 
of  the  kingdom.  A  land-tax  instead  of  a  poll-tax,  few 
exemptions  for  the  nobles,  no  farmers-general  to  collect 
taxes  and  fortunes.  The  contrast  between  the  good 
local  administration  of  Languedoc,  and  the  fatal  results 
of  centralisation  in  other  parts  of  France,  was  often  in 
the  mind  of  the  author  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations ;  and 
all  that  he  said  is  fully  confirmed  by  Tocqueville's 
study  of  French  society  before  the  Revolution.  Here  is 
a  passage  that  sounds  like  an  echo  of  Turgot :  Smith  is 
speaking  of  the  advantages  of  local  administration  from 
local  funds.  Under  such  an  administration,  he  says, 
"a  magnificent  highroad  cannot  be  made  through  a 
desart  country  where  there  is  little  or  no  commerce,  or 
merely  because  it  happens  to  lead  to  the  country  villa 
of  the  intendant  of  the  province,  or  to  that  of  some 
great  lord  to  whom  the  intendant  finds  it  convenient 
to  make  his  court.  A  great  bridge  cannot  be  thrown 
over  a  river  at  a  place  where  nobody  passes,  or  merely 
to  embellish  the  view  from  the  windows  of  a  neighbour- 
ing palace :  things  which  sometimes  happen  in  countries 
where  works  of  this  kind  are  carried  on  by  any  other 
revenue  than  that  which  they  themselves  are  capable  of 
affording." 

After  eighteen  months  in  Toulouse  the  party  went, 
we  are  told,  "  by  a  pretty  extensive  tour,  through  the 
south  of  France  to  Geneva."  There  Smith  was  able  to 
gratify  two  of  his  strongest  passions :  his  admiration 


vii.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  127 

for  the  Republican  form  of  government  and  for 
Voltaire.  The  little  Republic  was  then  in  a  constitu- 
tional tumult,  for  the  citizens  were  pressing  for  a 
share  in  what  had  till  then  been  a  narrow  aristocracy. 
In  this  they  had  the  support  of  Voltaire,  who  lived,  the 
literary  potentate  of  Europe,  at  Ferney,  just  outside  the 
city  bounds,  in  the  feudal  seigniory  of  Gex.  To  his 
chateau  by  the  lake  pilgrims  resorted  from  all  parts  of 
Europe  to  pay  their  court,  and  were  hospitably  received. 
Smith  seems  to  have  visited  Ferney  five  or  six  times 
during  his  short  stay,  and  conversation  deepened  the 
admiration  which  his  favourite  author  had  inspired. 

Samuel  Rogers,  meeting  Smith  a  year  before  his  death, 
happened  to  remark  of  some  writer  that  he  was  rather 
superficial,  a  Voltaire.  "  Sir ! "  cried  Smith,  incensed  by 
this  use  of  the  indefinite  article,  striking  the  table  with 
his  hand,  "there  has  been  but  one  Voltaire."  Voltaire, 
on  his  side,  probably  thought  well  of  the  Theory  of 
Moral  Sentiments,  for  his  intimate  friend,  Dr.  Tronchin, 
the  famous  physician  of  Geneva,  had  sent  his  son  to 
attend  Smith's  classes  at  Glasgow.  Rogers's  visit  fell 
in  the  year  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  question 
of  king  against  parliaments  was  being  debated.  Smith 
mentioned  that  Voltaire  had  an  aversion  to  the  States, 
and  was  attached  to  the  royal  authority.  Voltaire 
had  talked  about  the  Duke  of  Richelieu,  whom  the 
party  had  met  at  Toulouse,  as  a  singular  character. 
The  duke  had  slipped  down  at  Versailles,  a  few  years 
before  his  death,  "  the  first  faux  pas  he  had  ever  made 
at  Court."  When  Saint-Fond,  who  visited  Edinburgh 
in  1784,  called  on  Adam  Smith,  he  was  shown  a  fine 
bust  of  Voltaire ;  and  Smith  discoursed  upon  the  incal- 
culable obligations  that  Reason  owed  to  the  Philosopher 


128  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

of  Ferney.  "The  ridicule  and  sarcasms  which  he 
lavished  upon  fanatics  and  hypocrites  of  all  sects  have 
enabled  the  understandings  of  men  to  bear  the  light 
of  truth,"  and  prepared  them  for  research.  "He 
has  done  much  more  for  the  benefit  of  mankind  than 
those  grave  philosophers  whose  books  are  read  by  a 
few  only.  The  writings  of  Voltaire  are  made  for  all 
and  read  by  all."  Smith  said  he  could  not  pardon 
Joseph  the  Second  of  Austria,  "who  pretended  to 
travel  as  a  philosopher,"  for  passing  Ferney  without 
doing  homage  to  the  historian  of  Peter  the  Great. 
He  concluded  from  this  circumstance  that  Joseph 
"  was  but  a  man  of  inferior  mind." l 

Smith  kept  no  journal  during  his  French  tour, 
and  as  usual  wrote  as  few  letters  as  possible,  though 
he  must  have  made  extensive  notes.  Most  of  his 
letters  were  probably  to  report  progress  to  Charles 
Townshend.  I  have  in  my  possession  part  of  an 
abstract  of  one  of  these,  which,  though  of  no  im- 
portance in  itself,  serves  to  show  that  he  took  his 
tutorship  very  seriously.  From  sidelights  in  the 
correspondence  of  Charles  Bonnet  the  naturalist,  and 
Le  Sage,  and  Adam  Ferguson,  we  know  that  he  enjoyed 
the  best  company  in  Geneva,  particularly  at  the  house 
of  the  Duchesse  d'Enville,  who  was  there  under  Dr. 
Tronchin's  treatment  with  her  son,  the  ill-fated  Due  de 
la  Rochefoucauld.  In  1774  Adam  Ferguson  wrote  to 
Smith  that  his  own  bad  French  reminded  the  Duchesse 
d'Enville  of  her  old  difficulties  with  Smith,  "  but  she 
said  that  before  you  left  Paris  she  had  the  happiness  to 
learn  your  language."    Two  years  later  Bonnet  wished 

1  See  Faujas  Saint-Fond,  Travels  in  England  and  Scotland, 
vol.  ii.  p.  241. 


vii.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  129 

Hume  to  remember  him  to  "  the  Sage  of  Glascow,  .  .  . 
whom  we  shall  always  recollect  with  great  pleasure." 

The  tutor  with  his  two  pupils,  for  the  Duke  had  been 
joined  at  Bordeaux  by  a  younger  brother,  left  Geneva 
for  Paris  early  in  December  1765,  promising,  however, 
to  return  to  republican  soil  before  they  left  the  con- 
tinent. Hume,  now  a  rich  man  with  a  pension  of  £900 
a  year,  was  just  leaving  the  Embassy,  and  relinquishing 
his  sovereignty  of  philosophy  and  society ;  but  the 
two  friends  had  a  few  days  together  before  he  crossed 
the  Channel  with  poor,  wayward,  irresolute  Eousseau, 
hunted  or  haunted  by  the  furies.  Adam  Smith  was 
soon  in  a  whirlpool  of  gaiety  and  philosophy.  Friend- 
ship with  Hume  was  enough  to  ensure  a  friendly 
reception  from  Parisian  society,  where  science  and 
letters  were  still  fashionable.  But  Smith  was  known 
and  valued  for  his  own  sake;  his  Theory  of  Moral 
Sentiments  was  so  much  read,  praised,  and  talked  about 
that  several  translators,  among  them  the  young  Due  de 
Bochefoucauld,  were  competing  to  repair  the  badness 
of  the  first  attempt,  published  in  1764  by  Dous  at  the 
instance  of  Holbach.  That  of  the  Abbe  Blavet  was, 
Smith  thought,  but  indifferently  executed.  The  best 
translation,  it  is  said,  was  that  published  in  1798  by 
Condorcet's  widow. 

For  ten  months  Smith  suffered  and  enjoyed  enough 
dissipation  for  a  lifetime,  if  we  may  judge  from  the 
Hume  correspondence,  which  shows  that  in  one  week 
of  July  1766  he  was  at  Baron  Holbach's  conversing 
with  Turgot,  at  the  Comtesse  de  Boufflers',  and  in  the 
salon  of  Mademoiselle  de  l'Espinasse.  In  fact,  as  Mr.  Rae 
says,  he  seems  to  have  been  a  regular  guest  in  almost 
all  the  famous  salons  of  Paris.     Thus  we  find  Hume 


130  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

writing  in  March  to  the  Countess  de  Boufflers  :  "I  am 
glad  you  have  taken  my  friend  Smith  under  your  pro- 
tection. You  will  find  him  a  man  of  true  merit, 
though  perhaps  his  sedentary  recluse  life  may  have 
hurt  his  air  and  appearance  as  a  man  of  the  world." 
She  replies  in  May  that  she  has  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Mr.  Smith,  and  for  love  of  Hume  has  given  him  a 
very  hearty  welcome ;  that  she  is  reading  the  Theory  of 
Moral  Sentiments,  and  believes  it  will  please  her.  Six 
years  later  she  talked  of  translating  the  book,  and  said 
that  Smith's  doctrine  of  Sympathy  was  supplanting 
Hume's  philosophy  as  the  fashionable  opinion,  especially 
with  the  ladies  !  Smith  was  a  keen  playgoer  in  Paris, 
and  made  the  acquaintance  of  Madame  Riccoboni,  who 
had  been  a  great  actress  but  had  abandoned  the  stage 
for  the  novel,  and  was  almost  as  popular  as  Richardson. 
When  he  left  France  she  gave  him  a  charming  letter 
of  introduction  to  Garrick  : — 

"  Je  suis  bien  vaine,  my  dear  Mr.  Garrick,  de  pouvoir  vous 
donner  ce  que  je  perds  avec  un  regret  tres  vif,  le  plaisir  de 
voir  Mr.  Smith.  Ce  charming  philosopher  vous  dira  com- 
bien  il  a  d'esprit,  car  je  le  d^fie  de  parler  sans  en  montrer.  .  . 
Oh  ces  Ecossois !  ces  chiens  d'Ecossois !  ils  viennent  me  plaire 
et  m'affliger.  Je  suis  comme  ces  folles  jeunes  filles  qui 
ecoutent  un  amant  sans  penser  au  regret,  toujours  voisin  du 
plaisir.  Grondez-moi,  battez-moi,  tuez-moi :  mais  j'aime  Mr. 
Smith,  je  l'aime  beaucoup.  Je  voudrois  que  le  diable  em- 
portat  tous  nos  gens  de  lettres,  tous  nos  philosophes,  et  qu'il 
me  rapportat  Mr.  Smith." 

In  a  separate  letter  to  Garrick  the  novelist  again 
describes  her  friend:  "Mr.  Smith,  un  Ecossois,  homme 
d'un  tres  grand  merite,  aussi  distingue  par  son  bon 
naturel,  par  la  douceur  de  son  caractere  que  par  son 
esprit  et  son  savoir,  me  demande  une  lettre  pour  vous. 


vii.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  131 

Vous  verrez  un  philosophe  moral  et  pratique;  gay, 
riant  a  cent  lieus  de  la  pedanterie  des  ndtres."1  Of 
the  Rochefoucaulds  we  have  already  heard  at  Geneva. 
They  seem  to  have  been  at  Paris  during  Smith's  stay 
there,  for  "from  Madame  d'Enville,"  writes  Dugald 
Stewart,  "  the  respectable  mother  of  the  late  excellent 
and  much  lamented  Duke  of  Rochefoucauld,  he  received 
many  attentions  which  he  always  recollected  with 
particular  gratitude."  A  story  is  told  of  another  lady, 
a  marquise  of  talent  and  wit,  who  was  so  overcome  by 
his  personal  charms  that  she  fell  in  love  with  him  at 
Abbeville,  where  Smith  and  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch 
stopped  on  one  of  their  excursions  from  Paris.  A 
Captain  Lloyd,  who  was  with  the  party,  doubtless  on 
a  patriotic  visit  to  the  field  of  Cre9y,  told  the  story  to 
Dr.  Currie,  the  biographer  of  Burns.  The  philosopher 
could  neither  endure  these  addresses  nor  conceal  his 
embarrassment,  for  the  reason,  said  Lloyd,  that  he  was 
deeply  in  love  with  an  English  lady  who  was  also  at 
Abbeville.  But  Dugald  Stewart  only  mentions  an 
early  attachment  with  a  lady  who  remained  single, 
and  at  eighty  years  of  age  still  retained  evident 
traces  of  her  former  beauty,  and  adds  that  "after 
this  disappointment  he  laid  aside  all  thoughts  of 
marriage." 

Susan  Curchod,  that  "inestimable  treasure"  for 
whom  Gibbon  sighed  as  a  lover,  had  married  Necker, 
then  only  a  successful  banker,  while  Smith  and  his 
party  were  at  Toulouse.  The  mother  of  Madame  de 
Stael,  as  we  learn  from  her  first  admirer,  united  elegant 
manners  and  lively  conversation  with  wit,  beauty,  and 
erudition.  No  wonder  then  that  her  new  home  was 
1  See  Garrick  Correspondence,  vol.  ii.  pp.  549,  550. 


132  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

already  a  centre  of  Parisian  life.  The  Neckers 
were  very  hospitable,  and  were  intimate  with  Morellet 
and  others  of  the  economic  sect.  Adam  Smith's 
impressions  of  Necker  are  mentioned  by  Sir  James 
Mackintosh  in  the  ever  admirable  though  recanted 
Defence  of  the  French  Revolution.  He  had,  as  we  there 
read,  no  very  high  opinion  of  the  future  minister, 
speaking  of  him  as  a  man  probably  upright  and  not 
illiberal,  but  narrow,  pusillanimous,  and  entangled  by 
the  habit  of  detail.  He  predicted  that  Necker's  fame 
would  fall  when  his  talents  should  be  brought  to  the 
test,  and  always  said  emphatically,  "  He  is  a  man  of 
detail."  Mackintosh  adds:  "At  a  time  when  the 
commercial  abilities  of  Lord  Auckland  were  the  theme 
of  profuse  eulogy,  Dr.  Smith  characterised  him  in  the 
same  words." 

Dugald  Stewart  mentions  that  Smith  was  also 
acquainted  with  D'Alembert,  Helvetius,  and  Mar- 
montel.  It  was  at  the  house  of  Helvetius  that  he 
first  met  the  great  Turgot  and  the  excellent  Abbe 
Morellet.  "He  talked  our  language  very  badly," 
writes  the  Abbe*  in  his  memoirs;  "but  his  Theory  of 
Moral  Sentiments  had  given  me  a  great  idea  of  his 
depth  and  sagacity,  and  in  fact  I  still  look  upon  him 
as  one  who  made  most  comprehensive  observations 
and  analyses  of  all  the  questions  that  he  dealt  with. 
M.  Turgot,  who  was  as  fond  of  metaphysics  as  I  was, 
held  a  high  opinion  of  his  genius.  We  saw  him  often; 
he  was  presented  at  the  house  of  Helvetius :  we  dis- 
cussed the  theory  of  commerce,  banking,  loans,  and 
many  points  in  the  great  book  he  was  then  composing. 
He  gave  me  a  very  pretty  pocket-book  which  he  used 
and  which  has  served  me  for  twenty  years." 


vii.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  133 

Turgot's  Reflections  on  the  Formation  and  Distribution 
of  Wealth,  which  were  written  about  this  time,  remained 
unpublished  till  1769,  when  they  began  to  appear  in 
the  fiphime'rides  du  Citoyen.  It  is  noteworthy  as  bearing 
upon  the  question  of  mutual  obligation  between  Smith 
and  Turgot  that  it  was  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  not  the 
Reflections,  which  gave  topics  for  their  economic  dis- 
cussions. It  has  been  supposed,  on  the  authority  of 
Condorcet,  that  a  correspondence  was  subsequently 
carried  on  between  Smith  and  Turgot.  But  the 
publication  quite  recently  of  a  letter  written  by  Smith 
to  the  young  Duke  of  Rochefoucauld  has  removed  all 
doubt  upon  the  subject.  Rochefoucauld  had  written 
to  inquire  of  Smith  if  he  possessed  any  letters  from 
Turgot,  and  this  is  the  answer : — 

"I  should  certainly  have  been  very  happy  to  have  com- 
municated to  your  Grace  any  letters  which  the  ever  to  he 
regretted  Mr.  Turgot  had  done  me  the  honour  to  write  to  me  ; 
and  by  that  means  to  have  the  distinguished  honour  of  being 
recorded  as  one  of  his  correspondents.  But  tho'  I  had  the 
happiness  of  his  acquaintance  and,  I  flattered  myself,  even 
of  his  friendship  and  esteem,  I  never  had  that  of  his  corre- 
spondence. He  was  so  good  as  to  send  me  a  copy  of  the 
Prods  Verbal  of  what  passed  at  the  bed  of  justice  upon  the 
registration  of  his  six  edicts  which  did  so  much  honour  to 
their  Author,  and,  had  they  been  executed  without  alteration, 
would  have  proved  so  beneficial  to  his  country.  But  the 
present  (which  I  preserve  as  a  most  valuable  monument  of  a 
person  whom  I  remember  with  so  much  veneration)  was  not 
accompanied  with  any  letter." 

Twenty-three  years  afterwards  there  is  an  entry  in 
the  diary  of  Samuel  Rogers :  "  Adam  Smith  said  Turgot 
was  an  honest,  well-meaning  man,  but  unacquainted 
with  the  world  and  human  nature;   that  it  was  his 


134  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

maxim  (he  mentioned  it  to  Hume,  but  never  to  Smith) 
that  whatever  is  right  may  be  done."  This  is  certainly 
not  Adam  Smith's  whole  mind  about  Turgot,  for  whom 
he  entertained  a  lively  admiration.  But  undoubtedly 
he  considered  that  his  own  obligations  to  the  French 
School  of  Political  Economy  began  and  ended  with 
Quesnai,  and  we  know  that  he  intended  at  one  time 
to  dedicate  his  book  to  the  author  of  the  Economic 
Table.  Turgot,  Morellet,  Kiviere,  and  the  rest  were 
interpreters  of  Quesnai — disciples,  not  masters. 

Quesnai  was  the  inventor  of  a  new  system,  the  founder 
of  a  sect,  and  the  wielder  of  whatever  influence  that  sect 
exerted  on  the  Wealth  of  Nations.  Smith's  intercourse 
with  Quesnai  and  the  physiocrats,  as  well  as  a  careful 
study  of  their  writings,  accounts  for  some  important 
developments  of  theory  which  distinguish  his  book 
from  his  lectures,  and  particularly  the  attention  he 
there  pays  to  the  problem  of  distribution,  as  well 
as  a  distinct  though  moderated  bias  towards  agri- 
culture as  the  most  productive  of  pursuits.  He  was 
not  a  physiocrat.  Indeed  his  criticism  of  the  dis- 
tinctive doctrine  of  the  school,  that  all  wealth  comes 
from  the  soil,  was  felt  to  be  convincing  and  final. 
But  he  went  a  long  way  with  them,  and  some  of  his 
most  important  practical  conclusions  coincided  with 
theirs.  No  reader  of  the  ninth  chapter  of  Smith's 
fourth  book  could  doubt  that  Smith  knew  Quesnai 
as  well  as  Quesnai's  Table,  which  had  been  published 
in  1758  and  was  regarded  with  an  almost  super- 
stitious veneration  by  the  whole  sect.  If  the  doubt 
existed,  it  would  be  dispelled  by  a  curious  piece  of 
evidence.  Of  the  half-dozen  letters  he  wrote  from 
France  that  have  been  preserved,  the  longest,  dated 


vii.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  135 

Compiegne,  August  26,  1766,  is  to  Charles  Townshend, 
and  describes  some  anxious  moments  in  which  he  had 
called  in  the  aid  of  the  king's  physician.  The  Duke 
of  Buccleuch  had  been  to  Compiegne  to  see  the  camp 
and  to  hunt  with  the  King  and  the  Court,  and  after 
hunting  had  eaten  too  heartily  of  a  cold  supper  with 
a  vast  quantity  of  salad  and  some  cold  punch.  Sick- 
ness and  fever  followed.  The  faithful  tutor  begged 
him  to  send  for  a  doctor  : — 

"He  refused  a  long  time,  but  at  last,  upon  seeing  me 
uneasy,  consented.  I  sent  for  Quenay,  first  ordinary  physician 
to  the  King.  He  sent  me  word  he  was  ill.  I  then  sent  for 
Senac  ;  he  was  ill  likewise.  I  went  to  Quenay  myself  to  beg 
that,  notwithstanding  his  illness,  which  was  not  dangerous, 
he  would  come  to  see  the  Duke.  He  told  me  he  was  an  old 
infirm  man,  whose  attendance  could  not  be  depended  on, 
and  advised  me  as  his  friend  to  depend  upon  De  la  Saone, 
first  physician  to  the  Queen.  I  went  to  De  la  Saone.  He 
was  gone  out,  and  was  not  expected  home  that  night.  I 
returned  to  Quenay,  who  followed  me  immediately  to  the 
Duke.  It  was  by  this  time  seven  at  night.  The  Duke 
was  in  the  same  profuse  sweat  which  he  had  been  in  all 
day  and  all  the  preceding  night.  In  this  situation  Quenay 
declared  that  it  was  improper  to  do  anything  till  the  sweat 
should  be  over.  He  only  ordered  him  some  cooling  ptisane 
drink.  Quenay's  illness  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  return 
next  day  (Monday),  and  De  la  Saone  has  waited  on  the  Duke 
ever  since,  to  my  entire  satisfaction." 

In  reading  this  we  are  reminded  of  a  passage  in 
the  Wealth  of  Nations  where  Quesnai  is  described  as 
"a  physician,  and  a  very  speculative  physician,"  who 
thought  the  health  of  the  human  body  could  be 
preserved  only  by  a  certain  precise  regimen  of  diet  and 
exercise,  the  slightest  violation  of  which  necessarily 


136  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

occasioned  some  degree  of  disease  or  disorder.     The 
letter  to  Townshend  continues  : — 

"Depend  upon  hearing  from  me  by  every  post  till  his 
perfect  recovery ;  if  any  threatening  symptom  should  appear 
I  shall  immediately  despatch  an  express  to  you  ;  so  keep  your 
mind  as  easy  as  possible.  There  is  not  the  least  probability 
that  any  such  symptom  ever  will  appear.  I  never  stir  from 
his  room  from  eight  in  the  morning  till  ten  at  night,  and  watch 
for  the  smallest  change  that  happens  to  him.  I  should  sit 
by  him  all  night  too  if  the  ridiculous,  impertinent  jealousy  of 
Cook,  who  thinks  my  assiduity  an  encroachment  upon  his 
duty,  would  not  be  so  much  alarmed,  as  it  gave  some  disturb- 
ance even  to  his  master  in  his  present  illness." 

The  visit  was  now  drawing  to  an  end,  but  our 
account  of  it  would  be  incomplete  if  we  omitted 
Smith's  part  in  one  of  the  most  furious  squabbles  of 
the  century.  Rousseau  had  arrived  in  Paris  almost 
simultaneously  with  our  travellers,  tempted  by  Hume's 
generous  promise  to  find  him  a  refuge  in  England  from 
his  persecutors.  The  advent  of  the  author  of  the  Social 
Contract  and  JEmile  threw  Paris  into  a  tumult  of  excite- 
ment. "People  may  talk  of  ancient  Greece  as  they 
please,"  wrote  Hume,  full  of  affection  and  enthusiasm 
for  his  prot6g6,  "  but  no  nation  was  ever  so  proud  of 
genius  as  this,  and  no  person  ever  so  much  engaged 
their  attention  as  Rousseau.  Voltaire  and  everybody 
else  are  quite  eclipsed  by  him."  The  philosophers  of 
Paris  predicted  a  quarrel  before  they  got  to  Calais,  but 
for  some  time  Hume  contrived  to  manage  this  wayward, 
suspicious  genius  admirably  well,  procuring  him  a 
pension  and  a  comfortable  establishment  in  Derbyshire. 
At  last,  in  June,  Rousseau  suddenly  lost  his  head, 
mastered  by  the  haunting  fears  of  treachery,  and  wrote 


vii.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  137 

to  Hume  that  his  horrible  designs  were  at  last  found  out. 
For  once  in  his  life  Hume  lost  his  temper,  and  discre- 
tion departed  from  him.  He  determined  to  punish 
Rousseau's  ingratitude  and  put  himself  right  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world.  But  before  taking  this  step  he 
wrote  to  consult  his  friends  in  Paris,  and  Smith  sent 
the  following  reply : — 

"  Paris,  6th  July  1766. 

"Mr  dear  Friend, — I  am  thoroughly  convinced  that  Rous- 
seau is  as  great  a  rascal  as  you  and  as  every  man  here  believes 
him  to  be.  Yet  let  me  beg  of  you  not  to  think  of  publishing 
anything  to  the  world  upon  the  very  great  impertinence  which 
he  has  been  guilty  of  to  you.  By  refusing  the  pension  which  you 
had  the  goodness  to  solicit  for  him  with  his  own  consent,  he 
may  have  thrown,  by  the  baseness  of  his  proceedings,  a  little 
ridicule  upon  you  in  the  eyes  of  the  court  and  the  ministry. 
Stand  this  ridicule  ;  expose  his  brutal  letter,  but  without 
giving  it  out  of  your  own  hand,  so  that  it  may  never  be 
printed  ;  and,  if  you  can,  laugh  at  yourself ;  and  I  shall  pawn 
my  life  that  before  three  weeks  are  at  an  end  this  little  affair 
which  at  present  gives  you  so  much  uneasiness  shall  be  under- 
stood to  do  you  as  much  honour  as  anything  that  has  ever 
happened  to  you.  By  endeavouring  to  unmask  before  the 
public  this  hypocritical  pedant,  you  run  the  risk  of  disturbing 
the  tranquillity  of  your  whole  life.  By  letting  him  alone  he 
cannot  give  you  a  fortnight's  uneasiness.  To  write  against 
him  is,  you  may  depend  upon  it,  the  very  thing  he  wishes  you 
to  do.  He  is  in  danger  of  falling  into  obscurity  in  England, 
and  he  hopes  to  make  himself  considerable  by  provoking  an 
illustrious  adversary.  He  will  have  a  great  party,  the  Church, 
the  Whigs,  the  Jacobites,  the  whole  wise  English  nation,  who 
will  love  to  mortify  a  Scotchman,  and  to  applaud  a  man  who 
has  refused  a  pension  from  the  King.  It  is  not  unlikely,  too, 
that  they  may  pay  him  very  well  for  having  refused  it,  and 
that  even  he  may  have  had  in  view  this  compensation.  Your 
whole  friends  here  wish  you  not  to  write, — the  Baron, 
D'Alembert,    Madame    Riccoboni,   Mademoiselle  Riancourt, 


138  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

M.  Turgot,  etc.  etc.  M.  Turgot,  a  friend  every  way  worthy 
of  you,  desired  me  to  recommend  this  advice  to  you  in  a  par- 
ticular manner  as  his  most  earnest  entreaty  and  opinion.  He 
and  I  are  both  afraid  that  you  are  surrounded  with  evil 
counsellors,  and  that  the  advice  of  your  English  literati,  who 
are  themselves  accustomed  to  publishing  all  their  little  gossiping 
stories  in  newspapers,  may  have  too  much  influence  upon  you. 
Remember  me  to  Mr.  Walpole,  and  believe  me  to  be  with  the 
most  sincere  affection,  ever  yours,  Adam  Smith." 

Within  six  months  Hume  was  sorry  that  he  had  not 
taken  this  sage  advice,  and  blamed  himself  for  the 
"  Succinct  Exposure,"  which  had  been  followed  of  course 
by  a  cloud  of  pamphlets.  We  must  be  careful  not 
to  suppose  from  this  letter  that  Smith  really  had  a 
mean  opinion  of  Eousseau.  He  had  reviewed  with 
warm  but  discerning  praise  the  second  discourse  on 
the  Origin  and  Foundation  of  Inequality  among  Mankind; 
and  in  later  days  he  spoke  with  reverential  emotion  of 
the  author  of  the  Social  Contract. 

Smith  was  now  anxious  to  return  home.  To 
Millar,  his  publisher,  he  wrote  early  in  the  autumn : — 
"  Though  I  am  very  happy  here,  I  long  passionately 
to  rejoin  my  old  friends,  and  if  I  had  once 
got  fairly  to  your  side  of  the  water,  I  think  I 
should  never  cross  it  again.  Recommend  the  same 
sober  way  of  thinking  to  Hume.  He  is  light-hearted, 
tell  him,  when  he  talks  of  coming  to  spend  the 
remainder  of  his  days  here  or  in  France." 

Their  return  was  precipitated  by  a  tragedy.  Hew 
Scott,  the  Duke's  younger  brother,  a  lad  of  nineteen, 
was  assassinated  in  the  streets  of  Paris  on  October 
19th.  Smith  and  the  Duke  almost  immediately  left 
Paris,  and  were  in  London  at  the  beginning  of 
November.      "We    returned,"    wrote    the    Duke    to 


vii.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  139 

Dugald  Stewart,  "  after  having  spent  near  three  years 
together  without  the  slightest  disagreement  or  coolness, 
and  on  my  part  with  every  advantage  that  could  be 
expected  from  the  society  of  such  a  man.  We  con- 
tinued to  live  in  friendship  till  the  hour  of  his  death." 
Besides  the  substantial  advantages  of  independence, 
Smith,  as  we  learn  from  many  of  his  contemporaries, 
had  gained  vastly  in  manner,  address,  and  knowledge  of 
the  world.  Much  of  his  awkwardness  had  disappeared. 
In  the  bustle  of  travel  and  society,  he  almost  forgot 
how  to  be  absent-minded. 

"We  have  already  mentioned  a  complaint  that  Smith 
failed  to  realise  the  utter  misery  of  France  or  to  foresee 
the  Revolution.  The  second  half  of  the  complaint 
seems  to  be  an  impertinence.  He  was  not  called  upon 
to  write  out  the  past,  or  present,  much  less  the  future 
of  France.  The  first  part  of  the  complaint  is  more 
plausible.  The  Wealth  of  Nations  abounds  in  illustra- 
tions drawn  from  the  French  tour,  and  from  these  we 
certainly  get  a  less  melancholy  picture  than  from  the 
pages  of  Arthur  Young,  or  from  the  correspondence  of 
Voltaire,  D'Alembert,  Turgot  and  the  rest.  But  then, 
Young's  tour  was  twenty  years  later,  and  the  French 
reformers  were  thinking  exclusively  of  the  stagnant 
condition  of  France  in  a  moving  and  progressive  age. 
They  felt  bitterly  the  dreadful  difference  between 
their  France  and  the  France  that  should  have  been 
but  for  the  impoverishing  wars  and  oppressive  mis- 
government  of  Louis  xiv.  and  his  successors.  Smith 
took  France  as  she  was,  and  found  her  still  one  of  the 
richest  and  most  powerful  countries  of  the  world.  In 
the  ninth  chapter  of  his  first  book  he  compares 
Holland,  England,  France,  and  Scotland.      The  first, 


140  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

"in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  its  territory  and  the 
number  of  its  people,  is  a  richer  country  than  England." 
Its  government  can  borrow  at  two  per  cent. ;  wages  of 
labour  are  said  to  be  higher  than  in  England,  and  the 
Dutch  trade  upon  lower  profits  than  any  people  in 
Europe.  They  have  large  investments  in  foreign 
countries,  and  "during  the  late  war  the  Dutch  gained 
the  whole  carrying-trade  of  France,  of  which  they  still 
retain  a  very  large  share."  England  comes  next. 
"  France  is  perhaps  in  the  present  times  not  so  rich  a 
country  as  England."  Its  market  rate  of  interest  is 
generally  higher,  and  so  are  the  profits  of  trade ;  "  and 
it  is  no  doubt  upon  this  account  that  many  British 
subjects  chuse  rather  to  employ  their  capitals  in  a 
country  where  trade  is  in  disgrace  than  in  one  where 
it  is  highly  respected."  Then  he  shows  that,  though 
France  was  still  richer  than  Scotland,  Scotland  was 
making  far  more  rapid  progress : — 

"  The  wages  of  labour  are  lower  in  France  than  in  England. 
When  you  go  from  Scotland  to  England,  the  difference  which 
you  may  remark  between  the  dress  and  countenance  of  the 
common  people  in  the  one  country  and  in  the  other,  sufficiently 
indicates  the  difference  in  their  condition.  The  contrast  is 
still  greater  when  you  return  from  France.  France,  though 
no  doubt  a  richer  country  than  Scotland,  seems  not  to  be 
going  forward  so  fast.  It  is  a  common  and  even  a  popular 
opinion  in  the  country,  that  it  is  going  backwards  ;  an  opinion 
which,  I  apprehend,  is  ill-founded  even  with  regard  to 
France,  but  which  nobody  can  possibly  entertain  with  regard 
to  Scotland,  who  sees  the  country  now,  and  who  saw  it  twenty 
or  thirty  years  ago." 

Misgovernment,  it  is  true,  had  done  its  worst  in  pre- 
revolutionary  France,   but  it  could   not  ruin  fertile 


vii.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  141 

territory  and  a  thrifty  population.  At  that  time  the 
cities  of  Bordeaux,  Lyons,  and  Marseilles  surpassed  in 
wealth  and  in  the  number  of  their  inhabitants  Copen- 
hagen, Stockholm,  St.  Petersburg,  and  Berlin.  Several 
of  the  provincial  parliaments  offered  as  fair  a  field  for 
legal  talent  as  the  Courts  of  Dublin  and  Edinburgh. 
After  the  landed  nobility,  the  Church,  the  King,  his 
ministers,  intendants,  and  a  host  of  minor  officials  had 
taken  their  rents  and  revenues  and  stipends,  fortunes 
were  still  left  for  rapacious  financiers  and  rascally 
farmers-general.  Smith  saw  all  this  and  explained  it 
with  his  usual  lucidity.  But  he  never  mistook  wealth 
for  welfare.  He  applied  his  favourite  test  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  labouring  poor.  Though  France  was  a 
much  richer  country,  with  a  better  soil  and  climate  than 
Scotland,  and  "better  stocked  with  all  those  things 
which  it  requires  a  long  time  to  raise  up  and  accumu- 
late, such  as  great  towns  and  convenient  and  well- 
built  houses,  both  in  town  and  country,"  yet  the  poor 
were  worse  off.  In  England  the  common  people  all 
[sic]  wore  leather  shoes,  in  Scotland  the  men  only ;  in 
France  both  men  and  women  went  about  sometimes  in 
wooden  shoes  and  sometimes  barefooted.  He  finds 
the  reason  for  these  things  in  unfair  and  ill-judged 
taxation,  and  he  devotes  many  pages  to  a  severe 
scrutiny  of  the  French  system. 

Considering  that  France  had  some  twenty-four 
millions  of  people,  thrice  the  number  of  Great  Britain, 
that  it  was  naturally  richer  and  had  been  "  much 
longer  in  a  state  of  improvement  and  cultivation,"  it 
might  have  been  expected  that  the  French  Govern- 
ment could  have  raised  a  revenue  of  thirty  millions 
with    as    little    inconvenience  as    a    revenue  of    ten 


142  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

millions  was  raised  in  Great  Britain.  In  1765  and 
1766  the  revenue  actually  paid  into  the  French 
Treasury  did  not  amount  to  fifteen  millions  sterling. 
Yet  the  taxes  were  so  devised  and  collected  that  the 
French  people,  it  was  generally  acknowledged,  were 
much  more  oppressed  by  taxes  than  the  people  of 
Great  Britain.  "  France,  however,  is  certainly  the  great 
Empire  in  Europe  which,  after  that  of  Great  Britain, 
enjoys  the  mildest  and  most  indulgent  government ! " 
Smith  had  not  only  diagnosed  the  disease ;  his  French 
studies  and  his  friendship  with  enlightened  men  like 
Turgot,  Quesnai,  and  Morellet  had  enabled  him  to 
propose  remedies.  "  The  finances  of  France,"  he 
observes  in  the  second  chapter  of  his  fifth  book, 
"seem  in  their  present  state  to  admit  of  three  very 
obvious  reformations."  First,  he  would  abolish  the 
tattle  and  the  capitation,  balancing  the  loss  by  in- 
creasing the  number  of  vingtihmes  or  land-tax.  Second, 
"by  rendering  the  gabelle,  the  aides,  the  traites,  the 
taxes  upon  tobacco,  and  all  the  different  customs  and 
excises,  uniform  in  all  the  different  parts  of  the  king- 
dom, those  taxes  might  be  levied  at  much  less  expense, 
and  the  interior  commerce  of  the  kingdom  might  be 
rendered  as  free  as  that  of  England."  Thirdly,  by 
subjecting  all  taxes  to  the  immediate  inspection  and 
direction  of  government,  the  exorbitant  profits  of  the 
farmers-general  might  be  added  to  the  revenue  of  the 
State.  But,  he  adds,  with  the  same  scepticism  that 
colours  his  view  of  the  prospects  of  Free  Trade  in 
England,  the  opposition  arising  from  the  private 
interests  of  individuals  would  probably  be  effectual  in 
preventing  all  three  parts  of  the  scheme  of  reforma- 
tion.    Yet  half  a  century  after  the  appearance  of  the 


vu.]  THE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE,  1764-66  143 

tFealth  of  Nations  one  of  its  annotators  was  able  to  write : 
"  Taxes  in  France  are  now  placed  almost  on  the  foot- 
ing suggested  by  Dr.  Smith.  The  taille  and  capitation 
have  been  abolished,  and  replaced  by  the  contribution 
fonciere;  the  different  taxes  have  been  rendered 
equal  in  all  the  provinces  of  the  kingdom,  and  they 
are  chiefly  collected  by  officers  appointed  by  the 
Government."  Nor  is  the  connection  between  the 
book  and  the  reforms  either  fanciful  or  remote.  "It 
was,  I  avow — to  the  shame  of  my  first  instructors/' 
wrote  "le  bon  Mollien,"  Napoleon's  favourite  minister 
of  finance,  "this  book  of  Adam  Smith,  then  so  little 
known,  that  taught  me  better  to  appreciate  the  multi- 
tude of  points  at  which  public  finance  touches  every 
family,  and  raises  judges  of  it  in  every  household." 


CHAPTEK    VIII 

POLITICS  AND   STUDY,    1766-76 

Adam  Smith,  as  we  have  seen,  had  begun  to  write  his 
immortal  book  at  Toulouse  in  the  summer  of  1764  "in 
order  to  pass  away  the  time."  But  even  after  his 
return  to  London,  in  November  1766,  more  than  nine 
years  were  still  to  pass  before  the  Wealth  of  Nations 
could  be  placed  in  the  publisher's  hands.  All  this 
time  the  book  was  his  chief  occupation,  and  but  for 
the  light  which  an  occasional  letter  throws  upon  his 
studies,  the  story  of  Smith's  life  during  these  nine 
years  might  almost  be  written  in  as  many  lines.  For 
about  six  months  he  remained  in  London,  where  he 
mingled  with  men,  collected  books  and  material  for 
his  treatise,  and  saw  the  third  edition  of  his  Theory  of 
Moral  Sentiments  through  the  press. 

In  an  undated  letter  to  Strahan,  who  was  now  a 
partner  in  Millar's  publishing  firm,  about  the  title-page 
to  this  volume,  the  author  desired  to  be  called  "  simply 
Adam  Smith,  without  any  addition  either  before  or 
behind."  He  had  received  the  honorary  degree  of 
LL.D.  before  leaving  Glasgow,  but  he  did  not  like  to 
be  called  Dr.  Smith,  and  seldom  used  the  title.  But 
politics,  which  had  just  taken  a  strange  turn,  soon  com- 
manded his  attention ;  and  a  curious  letter  from  Smith 
to  Shelburne  (February  12,  1767)  raises  for  a  moment 

144 


vin.]  POLITICS  AND  STUDY,  1766-76  145 

the  curtain  that  divides  the  spectator  from  the  actors, 
and  allows  us  to  survey  the  scene  behind  which  the 
most  enlightened  member  of  the  Government  was 
working  to  introduce  common  sense  into  the  colonial 
policy  of  Great  Britain.  It  was  a  scene,  too,  in  the 
greatest  political  drama  of  Adam  Smith's  lifetime, 
which  left  deep,  decipherable  marks  on  the  pages  of 
the  Wealth  of  Nations. 

While  Smith  was  discussing  the  new  principles 
with  the  philosophers  of  Paris,  an  active  spirit  of 
dissatisfaction  had  been  spreading  in  distant  com- 
munities of  men.  The  spirit  of  liberty  seemed  to 
have  walked  forth  over  the  face  of  the  earth  and  to 
threaten  revolutions  in  every  part.  The  Georgians 
under  the  valiant  Heraclius  had  revolted  against  their 
ignominious  tribute  to  the  Turkish  seraglios.  The 
tyrannies  of  a  French  governor  had  provoked  insurrec- 
tions in  St.  Domingo.  The  first  tramp  of  a  revolution- 
ary march  was  heard  in  the  Spanish  dominions  of 
South  America;  above  all,  the  long  and  smouldering 
discontent  in  our  own  American  colonies  had  suddenly 
been  fanned  into  a  blaze.  But  Europe,  whose  policy 
had  been  the  source  of  all  these  woes,  was  for  once  in 
a  peaceful  mood.  The  Empress  of  Russia  was  busy 
entertaining  her  savants.  The  Swede  was  occupied  at 
home,  and  the  tall  Pomeranian  was  content  to  drill. 
A  financial  crisis  in  France  and  England  made  the  two 
Governments  friendly ;  and  though  there  were  bloody 
feuds  and  insurrections  in  Turkey,  Poland,  and  Spain, 
the  historian  of  Europe,  surveying  the  year  1766  and 
comparing  it  with  its  predecessors,  marked  it  with  a 
white  chalk  and  fancied  he  could  at  last  spell  a  drift 
towards  peace  in  the  hollow  states  and  bankrupt  empires 

K 


146  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

of  the  old  world.  Ambition  indeed  seldom  stoops  to 
calculations,  but  the  most  acquisitive  imperialist  seeing 
multitudes  of  unemployed,  food  at  famine  prices,  and 
manufactures  at  a  standstill,  began  to  wonder  whether 
after  all  the  conquests  of  the  war  had  been  worth  such 
a  price.  For  once  the  governing  classes  were  sobered 
and  were  ready  to  make  some  grudging  atonement 
for  one  of  their  worst  blunders.  The  same  commercial 
stress  which  constrained  the  French  King  to  pacify 
his  parliaments  inclined  the  parliament  of  Great 
Britain  to  appease  the  colonial  assemblies. 

The  session  of  1766  was  one  of  the  longest,  most 
momentous,  and  stirring  within  living  memory.  It  had 
begun,  as  we  have  said,  with  sharp  distress  at  home,  and 
that  distress  had  been  aggravated  by  the  disturbances  in 
America ;  for  the  colonists,  incensed  by  the  Stamp  Act, 
refused  to  pay  for  English  goods  (to  the  value  of  several 
millions)  with  which  their  shops  and  warehouses  were 
stocked.  No  wonder,  then,  that  in  all  parts  of  the 
realm  traders  and  manufacturers  did  their  best  to  per- 
suade the  Rockingham  ministry  to  adopt  conciliatory 
measures.  Parliament  was  besieged  by  petitions  from 
the  merchants  of  London,  Bristol,  Lancaster,  Liverpool, 
Hull,  Glasgow,  and  most  of  the  trading  and  manufac- 
turing towns  in  the  kingdom,  setting  forth  the  great 
damage  done  to  their  trade  by  the  new  laws  and  regu- 
lations made  for  America.  They  pointed  out  that  the 
Stamp  Act  and  other  harassing  legislation  had  not 
only  sown  a  crop  of  discontent  in  the  colonies,  but  had 
already  produced  many  bankruptcies  at  home  and  were 
rapidly  leading  to  widespread  distress. 

A  contemporary  writer  of  great  power  tells  us  that 
no  matter  of  debate  was  ever  more  ably  or  learnedly 


vni.]  POLITICS  AND  STUDY,  1766-76  147 

handled  in  both  Houses  than  the  colonial  policy  which 
Lord  Rockingham  and  his  colleagues  laid  before  Par- 
liament. Those  who  denied  the  right  of  taxing  the 
colonies  cited  Locke  and  Selden,  Harrington  and  Puffen- 
dorf ,  to  show  that  the  very  foundation  and  ultimate  point 
in  view  of  all  government  is  the  good  of  the  society. 
They  inferred  from  the  Magna  Charta  and  Bill  of 
Rights,  and  from  the  whole  history  of  our  constitution, 
that  no  British  subject  can  be  taxed  save  by  himself 
or  his  own  representative;  and  they  further  quoted 
in  support  of  their  argument  the  constitutions  of  the 
Tyrian  colonies  in  Africa,  and  of  the  Greek  colonies  in 
Asia.  On  this  last  head  the  supporters  of  the  Stamp 
Act  (Charles  Townshend's  fatal  measure)  observed, 
sensibly  enough,  that  arguments  about  the  British 
colonies  drawn  from  the  colonies  of  antiquity  were  a 
mere  useless  display  of  learning,  for  the  Tyrian  and 
Greek  colonies  were  planned  on  a  totally  different 
system.  Besides,  they  said,  the  Romans  were  the  first 
to  form  a  regular  colonial  system,  and  Rome's  jurisdic- 
tion over  her  colonies  was  "  boundless  and  uncontroll- 
able." As  for  Locke,  Selden,  and  Puffendorf,  they  were 
only  natural  lawyers,  and  their  refinements  were  little 
to  the  purpose  in  arguing  the  law  and  practice  of  a 
particular  constitution. 

The  Rockinghams  carried  the  Repeal  of  the  Stamp 
Act;  but  the  effect  of  this  wise  and  generous  policy 
was  marred  by  a  Declaratory  Act  for  better  secur- 
ing the  dependence  of  His  Majesty's  dominions  in 
America,  which  set  forth  the  supremacy  of  Parliament 
over  all  the  colonies  and  its  right  to  impose  taxes. 
At  the  end  of  July,  after  the  conclusion  of  a  satisfactory 
session,  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham  was  suddenly,  to 


148  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

the  surprise  of  the  nation,  ejected  from  office  by  the 
king,  and  a  new  ministry  of  strangely  assorted  talents, 
with  Chatham  at  its  head,  in  which  Shelburne,  Charles 
Townshend,  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  and  Camden  were  the 
leading  figures,  was  pushed  into  office.  Accordingly 
when  Adam  Smith  returned  to  England  he  found 
not  only  that  those  commercial,  fiscal,  and  colonial 
questions  in  which  he  was  so  deeply  versed  were  the 
first  questions  in  politics,  but  also  that  the  two  states- 
men with  whom  he  was  most  intimate  occupied  two 
of  the  most  important  posts — for  Charles  Townshend 
was  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and  Shelburne  was 
a  Secretary  of  State. 

These  events  sufficiently  explain  why  a  real  states- 
man like  Shelburne,  one  of  the  leading  members  of 
the  ministry,  was  seeking  information  at  the  beginning 
of  the  session  of  1767  upon  colonial  topics.  It  seems 
astonishing  to  us  now  that  the  Roman  analogy  should 
have  so  exercised  the  minds  of  practical  statesmen ; 
but  Greek  and  Latin  were  the  only  subjects  in  those 
days  with  which  educated  members  of  the  governing 
classes  were  sure  to  be  familiar,  and  it  was  to  these 
men  in  Parliament  that  political  arguments  were 
exclusively  addressed.  Probably  Shelburne  wanted 
classical  precedents  to  check  his  colleagues  from  revert- 
ing to  a  coercive  policy,  and  was  anxious  to  meet  the 
argument  from  Rome  that  had  been  used  in  the 
debates  of  the  previous  year.  At  any  rate,  he  had 
asked  help  of  Adam  Smith,  and  received  the  following 
reply,  which  was  more  helpful  than  it  should  have 
been:  "Within  these  two  days  I  have  looked  over 
everything  I  can  find  relating  to  the  Roman  colonys. 
I  have  not  yet  found  anything  of  much  consequence. 


vin.]  POLITICS  AND  STUDY,  1766-76  149 

.  .  .  They  seem  to  have  been  very  independent.  Of 
thirty  colonys  of  whom  the  Romans  demanded  troops 
in  the  second  Carthaginian  War,  twelve  refused  to 
obey.  They  frequently  rebelled  and  joined  the  enemies 
of  the  republic;  being  in  some  measure  little  inde- 
pendent republics,  they  naturally  followed  the  interests 
which  their  peculiar  situation  pointed  out  to  them." 
His  first  studies  on  Roman  colonisation  had  a  decidedly 
whiggish  complexion.  Further  reading  led  him  to  the 
juster  view  expressed  in  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  that  a 
Roman  colony  was  quite  different  from  the  autonomous 
Greek  dwoiKia,  "  at  best  a  sort  of  corporation,  which, 
though  it  had  the  power  of  enacting  byelaws  for  its 
own  government,  was  at  all  times  subject  to  the  cor- 
rection, jurisdiction,  and  legislative  authority  of  the 
mother  country."  And  this  explains  why  the  Greek 
colonies  were  so  much  more  prosperous  :  "  As  they  were 
altogether  independent  of  the  mother  city,  they  were 
at  liberty  to  manage  their  own  affairs  in  the  way  they 
judged  was  most  suitable  to  their  own  interests."  But 
before  the  colonial  debates  of  1767  came  on  Adam 
Smith  had  left  London. 

On  March  25th  he  wrote  from  Lower  Grosvenor 
Street  to  Thomas  Cadell,  one  of  the  partners  in  Millar's 
firm,  which  combined  bookselling  with  publishing,  to 
ask  him  to  insure  four  boxes  of  books  for  £200,  and 
despatch  them  to  Kincaid,  his  publisher  in  Edinburgh.1 
He  probably  stayed  in  London  till  the  third  of  May, 

1  See  letter  from  Adam  Smith  to  T.  Cadell  printed  in  the 
Economic  Journal  for  September  1898.  It  appears  that  the  last 
two  books  he  had  ordered  were  Postlethwait's  Dictionary  of 
Trade  and  Anderson's  Deduction  of  the  Origin  of  Commerce. 
Neither  appears  in  Mr.  Bonar's  catalogue  of  his  library. 


150  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

when  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch  was  married.  He  would 
then  pick  up  his  valuable  parcels  in  Edinburgh  and  go 
on  without  delay  to  Kirkcaldy  to  rejoin  his  mother  and 
his  cousin,  Miss  Jane  Douglas,  from  whom  he  had  been 
separated  for  more  than  two  years. 

His  first  letter  to  Hume  (Kirkcaldy,  June  9th)  de- 
scribes his  daily  life.  "  My  business  here  is  study,  in 
which  I  have  been  very  deeply  engaged  for  about  a 
month  past.  My  amusements  are  long  solitary  walks 
by  the  seaside.  You  may  judge  how  I  spend  my  time. 
I  feel  myself,  however,  extremely  happy,  comfortable, 
and  contented.  I  never  was  perhaps  more  so  in  all  my 
life."  He  goes  on  to  ask  about  his  friends  in  London, 
and  wishes  to  be  remembered  to  all,  particularly  to  Mr. 
Adams  the  architect,  and  to  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Montagu. 
He  inquires  about  Eousseau  :  "  Has  he  gone  abroad,  be- 
cause he  cannot  contrive  to  get  himself  sufficiently  per- 
secuted in  Great  Britain J "  He  also  wants  to  know  the 
meaning  of  "the  bargain  that  your  ministry  have  made 
with  the  India  Company,"  and  rejoices  that  they  have 
refused  to  prolong  its  charter.  At  the  end  of  August 
Smith  paid  a  visit  to  Dalkeith  House  to  help  the  newly 
married  couple  to  entertain  their  tenants  and  friends 
on  the  occasion  of  the  Duke's  birthday.  "The  Duke 
and  Dutchess  of  Buccleugh,"  he  wrote  to  Hume  on 
September  15th,  "have  been  here  now  for  almost  a 
fortnight.  They  begin  to  open  their  house  on  Monday 
next,  and  I  flatter  myself,  will  both  be  very  agreeable 
to  the  people  of  this  country.  I  am  not  sure  that  I 
have  ever  seen  a  more  agreeable  woman  than  the 
Dutchess.  I  am  sorry  that  you  are  not  here,  because  I 
am  sure  you  would  be  perfectly  in  love  with  her.  I 
shall  probably  be  here  some  weeks." 


vin.]  POLITICS  AND  STUDY,  1766-76  151 

Dr.  Carl yie  was  among  the  guests  at  Dalkeith  House, 
and  in  his  autobiography  takes  some  credit  to  himself 
for  the  success  of  the  proceedings.  "Adam  Smith,"  he 
says,  "  was  but  ill  qualified  to  promote  the  jollity  of  a 
birthday,"  and  but  for  Carlyle's  exertions  the  meeting 
might  have  been  dissolved  without  even  drinking  the 
proper  toasts.  His  conclusion  is  that  the  Duke  and 
Duchess  should  have  brought  down  a  man  of  "more 
address,"  and  he  leaves  little  doubt  as  to  who  that  man 
should  have  been.  Incidentally  Dr.  Carlyle  has  to 
admit  that  the  new  Duke  proved  a  great  credit  to  his 
tutor.  The  Buccleuch  family  had  always  been  good 
landlords,  but  Duke  Henry  "surpassed  them  all  as 
much  in  justice  and  humanity  as  he  did  in  superiority 
of  understanding  and  good  sense."  Lord  Brougham 
relates  a  story  which  illustrates  what  Carlyle  meant  by 
"want  of  address."  On  one  occasion,  during  dinner  at 
Dalkeith,  our  philosopher  broke  out  into  a  discourse  on 
some  political  matters  of  the  day,  and  was  bestowing  a 
variety  of  severe  epithets  on  a  certain  statesman,  when 
he  suddenly  perceived  the  statesman's  nearest  relative 
sitting  opposite,  and  stopped;  but  he  was  heard  to 
mutter,  "  Deil  care,  deil  care,  it 's  all  true  ! " 

After  two  months  at  Dalkeith  he  returned  to  his 
mother  and  his  studies,  and  remained  for  the  next  six 
years,  so  far  as  we  know,  uninterruptedly  at  Kirk- 
caldy, save  for  an  occasional  visit  to  Edinburgh,  whither 
he  was  constantly  and  with  much  importunity  invited 
by  his  friend  Hume.  Dugald  Stewart  remarks  that 
this  retirement  "formed  a  striking  contrast  to  the 
unsettled  mode  of  life  he  had  been  for  some  time 
accustomed  to,  but  was  so  congenial  to  his  natural  dis- 
position, and  to  his  first  habits,  that  it  was  with  the 


152  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

utmost  difficulty  he  was  ever  persuaded  to  leave  it." 
He  was  never  happier  than  now,  living  with  his 
mother  in  Kirkcaldy ;  "  occupied  habitually  in  intense 
study,  but  unbending  his  mind  at  times  in  the  company 
of  some  of  his  old  school-fellows,  whose  '  sober  wishes 
had  attached  them  to  the  place  of  their  birth.  In  the 
society  of  such  men  Mr.  Smith  delighted ;  and  to  them 
he  was  endeared,  not  only  by  his  simple  and  unassum- 
ing manners,  but  by  the  perfect  knowledge  they  all 
possessed  of  those  domestic  virtues  which  had  dis- 
tinguished him  from  his  infancy."1 

The  High  Street  of  Kirkcaldy  contained  some 
excellent  houses,  and  that  occupied  by  Smith  -was  one 
of  the  best.  It  was  large  and  substantially  built,  four 
stories  high,  with  twenty  windows  facing  into  the  High 
Street.  It  had  a  frontage  of  about  fifty  feet,  and  a 
garden  of  the  same  width  ran  back  a  hundred  yards  or 
more  eastwards  down  to  the  sands.  On  either  side  of 
the  garden  was  a  high  wall,  and  on  the  north  side  a 
narrow  public  footpath  divided  Smith's  garden  from 
his  neighbour's.  This  quaint  passage,  enclosed  by 
two  high  walls,  is  still  called  Adam  Smith's  Close. 

The  house  was  pulled  down  in  1844.  Kobert  Cham- 
bers, who  saw  it  in  the  twenties,  noticed  a  mark  on  the 

1  At  Kirkcaldy  George  Drysdale,  for  some  time  Provost  of 
the  town  and  afterwards  Collector  of  Customs,  was  a  "steady 
and  much  esteemed  friend."  His  more  distinguished  brother, 
Dr.  John  Drysdale  the  minister,  had  been  at  school  with  Smith, 
and  "among  all  his  numerous  friends  and  acquaintances,"  says 
Dalzel,  there  was  none  "whom  he  loved  with  greater  affection 
or  spoke  of  with  greater  tenderness."  They  often  met  in 
Kirkcaldy  and  Edinburgh.  The  death  of  James  Oswald,  who 
represented  Kirkcaldy,  early  in  1769,  was  a  serious  loss  to  the 
little  society,  and  particularly  to  Smith. 


vin.]  POLITICS  AND  STUDY,  1766-76  153 

wall  of  Smith's  study,  and  was  told  that  the  philosopher 
used  to  compose  standing.  As  he  dictated  to  his  clerk 
he  would  rub  his  wig  sideways  against  the  wall,  and 
so  left  a  mark  which,  says  the  antiquary  regretfully, 
"remained  till  lately,  when  the  room  being  painted 
anew  it  was  unfortunately  destroyed."  Hume,  who  had 
just  removed  to  James's  Court,  Edinburgh,  wrote  to  his 
friend  in  August  1769  to  tempt  him  from  his  retreat : — 

"  I  am  glad  to  have  come  within  sight  of  you,  and  to  have 
a  view  of  Kirkaldy  from  my  windows  :  but  as  I  wish  also  to 
be  within  speaking  terms  of  you,  I  wish  we  could  concert 
measures  for  that  purpose.  I  am  mortally  sick  at  sea,  and 
regard  with  horror  and  a  kind  of  hydrophobia  the  great  gulf 
that  lies  between  us.  I  am  also  tired  of  travelling,  as  much  as 
you  ought  naturally  to  be  of  staying  at  home.  I  therefore 
propose  to  you  to  come  hither  and  pass  some  days  with  me 
in  this  solitude.  I  want  to  know  what  you  have  been  doing, 
and  propose  to  exact  a  rigorous  account  of  the  method  in 
which  you  have  employed  yourself  during  your  retreat.  I  am 
positive  you  are  in  the  wrong  in  many  of  your  speculations, 
especially  where  you  have  the  misfortune  to  differ  from  me. 
All  these  are  reasons  for  our  meeting,  and -I  wish  you  would 
make  me  some  reasonable  proposal  for  that  purpose.  There  is 
no  habitation  on  the  island  of  Inchkeith,  otherwise  I  should 
challenge  you  to  meet  me  on  that  spot,  and  neither  of  us  ever 
to  leave  the  place  till  we  were  fully  agreed  on  all  points  of 
controversy." 

By  the  following  February  the  book  had  made  such 
progress  that  Hume  was  expecting  to  see  his  friend  in 
Edinburgh  for  a  day  or  two  on  his  way  to  London, 
where  Smith  already  talked  of  arranging  for  immediate 
publication.  He  changed  his  mind,  however,  though 
he  went  to  Edinburgh  in  June,  where  with  the  Duke 
of  Buccleuch  and  John  Hallam  he  received  the  freedom 
of  the  city.     In  January  1772  we   find  the  friends 


154  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

corresponding  about  Italian  literature.  Smith  recom- 
mends Hume  to  read  Metastasio.  Hume  replies  that 
he  is  reading  Italian  prose,  again  reminds  him  of  the 
promised  visit,  and  refuses  to  take  the  excuse  of  ill- 
health,  which  he  calls  a  subterfuge  invented  by 
indolence  and  love  of  solitude.  "Indeed,  my  dear 
Smith,  if  you  continue  to  hearken  to  complaints  of 
this  nature,  you  will  cut  yourself  out  entirely  from 
human  society  to  the  great  loss  of  both  parties." 

This  year  was  marked  by  a  severe  commercial 
crisis  j  nearly  all  the  banks  in  Edinburgh  came  to  grief, 
and  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch  and  other  friends  of  Smith 
were  in  the  greatest  difficulty.  In  a  letter  to  Pulteney 
(September  5,  1772),  Smith  says,  though  he  has  him- 
self suffered  no  loss  in  the  public  calamities,  some  of 
his  friends  have  been  deeply  concerned,  and  he  has 
been  much  occupied  about  the  best  method  of  extri- 
cating them.     He  continues  : — 

"  In  the  book  which  I  am  now  preparing  for  the  press,  I 
have  treated  fully  and  distinctly  of  every  part  of  the  subject 
which  you  have  recommended  to  me  ;  and  I  intended  to  send 
you  some  extracts  from  it ;  but  upon  looking  them  over  I 
find  that  they  are  too  much  interwoven  with  other  parts  of 
the  work  to  be  easily  separated  from  it.  I  have  the  saine 
opinion  of  Sir  James  Steuart's  book 1  that  you  have.  With- 
out once  mentioning  it,  I  flatter  myself  that  any  fallacious 
principle  in  it  will  meet  with  a  clear  and  distinct  confutation 
in  mine.  .  .  .  My  book  would  have  been  ready  for  the  press 
by  the  beginning  of  this  winter,  but  interruptions  occasioned 
partly  by  bad  health,  arising  from  want  of  amusement  and 
from  thinking  too  much  upon  one  thing,  and  partly  by  the 
avocations  above  mentioned,  will  oblige  me  to  retard  its 
publication  for  a  few  months  longer." 

1  Steuart's  Political  Economy,  1767. 


vin.]  POLITICS  AND  STUDY,  1766-76  155 

It  appears  that  Pulteney  had  recommended  the 
Directors  of  the  East  India  Company  to  appoint  Smith 
as  a  commissioner  to  examine  their  administration 
and  accounts.  Smith  says  he  is  much  honoured  and 
obliged:  "You  have  acted  in  your  old  way,  of  doing 
your  friends  a  good  office  behind  their  backs,  pretty 
much  as  other  people  do  them  a  bad  one.  There  is 
no  labour  of  any  kind  which  you  can  impose  upon  me 
which  I  will  not  readily  undertake."  He  believes  he 
is  in  agreement  with  Pulteney  as  to  the  proper  remedy 
for  the  disorders  of  the  coin  in  Bengal.  The  commis- 
sion, however,  was  not  appointed.  No  reforms  worth 
mentioning  were  made,  and  the  Wealth  of  Nations 
teems  with  severe  criticisms  of  the  Company.1 

A  month  after  this  letter  to  Pulteney,  Hume  drafts 
a  little  programme  for  the  completion  and  publication 
of  the  work,  evidently  in  reply  to  one  of  Smith's 
dilatory  notes  :  "  I  should  agree  to  your  reasoning  if  I 
could  trust  your  resolution.  Come  hither  for  some 
weeks  about  Christmas ;  dissipate  yourself  a  little ; 
return  to  Kirkcaldy;  finish  your  work  before  autumn; 
go  to  London ;  print  it ;  return  and  settle  in  this  town, 
which  suits  your  studious,  independent  turn  even  better 
than  London.  Execute  this  plan  faithfully,  and  I 
forgive  you." 

Before  following  our  hero  to  London  with  the  fateful 
manuscript,  we  must  repeat  a  local  tradition  belonging 
to  this  period  which  is  recorded  in  Dr.  Charles  Eogers's 
Social  Life  in  Scotland.  One  Sunday  morning  Smith, 
falling  into  an  unusually  profound  reverie  (brought  on 
perhaps  by  thought  upon  the  disorders  of  the  Bengal 

1  The  most  important  of  these  (in  Book  iv.  chap,  vii.)  appear 
for  the  first  time  in  the  third  edition  (1784). 


156  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

currency),  walked  into  his  garden  in  an  old  dressing- 
gown.  Instead  of  returning  to  the  house,  he  made 
his  way  by  a  small  path  into  the  turnpike  road,  and 
eventually  marched  into  the  town  of  Dunfermline, 
fifteen  miles  from  his  home.  The  people  there  were 
flocking  to  church,  and  the  bustle  restored  the  philo- 
sopher to  his  wits.  In  April  1773,  after  six  years  of 
seclusion,  he  at  last  left  home  with  his  manuscript, 
intending  no  doubt  to  have  it  printed  and  published 
in  the  course  of  a  few  months.  He  broke  his  journey 
at  Edinburgh,  and  there  wrote  a  formal  letter  con- 
stituting Hume  his  executor : — 

"As  I  have  left  the  care  of  all  my  literary  papers  to 
you,  I  must  tell  you  that  except  those  which  I  carry  along 
with  me,  there  are  none  worth  the  publishing  but  a 
fragment  of  a  great  work  which  contains  a  history  of 
the  astronomical  systems  that  were  successively  in  fashion 
down  to  the  time  of  Descartes.  Whether  that  might  not  be 
published  as  a  fragment  of  an  intended  juvenile  work  I  leave 
entirely  to  your  judgment,  tho'  I  begin  to  suspect  myself 
that  there  is  more  refinement  than  solidity  in  some  parts  of  it. 
This  little  work  you  will  find  in  a  thin  folio  paper  book  in  my 
writing-desk  in  my  book-room.  All  the  other  loose  paper 
which  you  will  find  either  in  that  desk  or  within  the  glass 
folding-doors  of  a  bureau  which  stands  in  my  bedroom, 
together  with  about  eighteen  thin  paper  folio  books,  which 
you  will  likewise  find  within  the  same  glass  folding-doors,  I 
desire  may  be  destroyed  without  any  examination.  Unless  I 
die  very  suddenly,  I  shall  take  care  that  the  Papers  I  carry 
with  me  shall  be  carefully  sent  to  you." 

He  reached  London  in  May,  and  seems  to  have 
remained  there  until  after  the  publication  of  the 
Wealth  of  Nations  in  March  1776.  But  the  records  of 
his  stay  are  of  the  slightest.  There  is  left  but  one 
important  letter,  a  long  and  earnest  plea  against  the 


viii.]  POLITICS  AND  STUDY,  1766-76  157 

principle  of  monopoly  in  medical  education.  It  was 
to  his  friend  Dr.  Cullen.  Some  of  the  Scottish 
universities  had  been  conferring  medical  degrees  with- 
out examination  on  incompetent  men.  The  Duke  of 
Buccleuch  was  willing  to  join  in  a  petition  to  Parlia- 
ment to  stop  the  mischief.  Smith's  views  upon  the 
subject  are  highly  characteristic.  He  considers  that  the 
Scotch  universities,  though  of  course  capable  of  amend- 
ment, are  "without  exception  the  best  seminaries  of 
learning  that  are  to  be  found  anywhere  in  Europe." 
A  visitation  (that  is,  a  Royal  Commission)  would  be 
the  only  proper  means  of  reforming  them  : — 

"Before  any  wise  man,  however,  would  apply  for  the 
appointment  of  so  arbitrary  a  tribunal  in  order  to  improve 
what  is  already,  upon  the  whole,  very  well,  he  ought  certainly 
to  know  with  some  degree  of  certainty,  first,  who  are  likely  to 
be  appointed  visitors,  and  secondly,  what  plan  of  reformation 
those  visitors  are  likely  to  follow  ;  but  in  the  present  multi- 
plicity of  pretenders  to  some  share  in  the  prudential  manage- 
ment of  Scotch  affairs,  these  are  two  points  which,  I  apprehend, 
neither  you  nor  I,  nor  the  Solicitor-General  nor  the  Duke  of 
Buccleugh,  can  possibly  know  anything  about." 

Perhaps  in  the  future  a  better  opportunity  might 
present  itself.  An  admonition,  or  other  irregular 
means  of  interference,  was  out  of  the  question.  Dr. 
Cullen  had  proposed  that  no  person  should  be  admitted 
to  examination  for  his  degrees  unless  he  brought  a 
certificate  of  his  having  studied  at  least  two  years  in 
some  university.  Smith  (who  was  himself  at  this 
very  time,  with  Gibbon,  attending  a  course  given  by 
Dr.  William  Hunter)  objects :  "  would  not  such  a 
regulation  be  oppressive  upon  all  private  teachers, 
such   as   the  Hunters,  Hewson,  Fordyce,  etc.1?    The 


158  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

scholars  of  such  teachers  surely  merit  whatever  honour 
or  advantage  a  degree  can  confer  much  more  than  the 
greater  part  of  those  who  have  spent  many  years  in 
some  universities.  .  .  .  When  a  man  has  learnt  his 
lesson  very  well,  it  surely  can  be  of  little  importance 
where  or  from  whom  he  has  learnt  it." 

The  last  sentence  is  one  that  men  should  lay  to 
heart.  It  is  one  of  those  obvious  truths  which  few 
have  the  candour  to  assert  and  still  fewer  the  courage 
to  act  upon.  A  very  clever  person,  on  reading  the 
Wealth  of  Nations,  complained  that  it  seemed  to  be 
little  more  than  a  well  arranged  succession  of  truisms. 
Yet  for  the  want  of  those  truths  mankind  has  stumbled 
along  in  the  dark  from  the  beginning.  "The  less 
you  restrain  trade,  the  more  you  will  have."  A  truism, 
if  you  like,  but  its  denial  has  caused  an  infinitude  of 
avoidable  suffering.  "If  a  man  has  learnt  his  lesson 
well,  never  mind  about  his  university  or  his  degree." 
A  truism,  without  doubt,  but  one  that  is  constantly 
neglected  and  despised  to  the  grave  detriment  of 
justice  and  learning. 

Smith  held  that  the  effect  of  degrees  injudiciously 
conferred  was  not  very  considerable.  "That  doctors 
are  sometimes  fools  as  well  as  other  people  is  not  in 
the  present  time  one  of  those  profound  secrets  which  is 
known  only  to  the  learned."  Apothecaries  and  old 
herb- women  practised  physic  without  complaint,  because 
they  only  poisoned  the  poor  people.  "And  if  here  and 
there  a  graduated  doctor  should  be  as  ignorant  as  an 
old  woman,  can  great  harm  be  done  ? "  Smith  rubbed 
in  his  moral  about  university  degrees  with  evident 
relish,  comparing  degrees  which  could  only  be  conferred 
on  students  of  a  certain  standing  to  the  statutes  of 


vin.]  POLITICS  AND  STUDY,  1766-76  159 

apprenticeship  and  other  corporation  laws,  which  had 
expelled  arts  and  manufactures  from  so  many 
boroughs. 

In  boroughs,  monopoly  had  made  work  bad  and 
dear;  in  universities,  it  had  led  to  quackery,  im- 
posture, and  exorbitant  fees.  One  remedy  for  the 
inconveniences  of  town  corporations  had  been  found 
in  the  outgrowth  of  manufacturing  villages ;  and,  in  a 
similar  way,  the  private  interest  of  some  poor  pro- 
fessors of  physic  had  done  something  to  check  the 
exorbitance  of  rich  universities,  which  made  a  course 
of  eleven  or  even  sixteen  years  necessary  before  a 
student  could  become  a  Doctor  of  Law,  Physic,  or 
Divinity.  The  poor  universities  could  not  stipulate 
for  residence,  and  sold  their  degrees  to  any  one  who 
would  buy  them,  often  without  even  a  decent  examina- 
tion. "  The  less  trouble  they  gave,  the  more  money 
they  got,  and  I  certainly  do  not  pretend  to  vindicate 
so  dirty  a  practice."  Nevertheless  these  cheap  degrees, 
though  extremely  disagreeable  to  graduates  whose 
degrees  had  cost  much  time  and  expense,  were  of 
advantage  to  the  public  in  that  they  multiplied  doctors, 
and  so  sunk  fees.  "Had  the  Universities  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  been  able  to  maintain  themselves  in 
the  exclusive  privilege  of  graduating  all  the  doctors 
who  could  practise  in  England,  the  price  of  feeling  a 
pulse  might  by  this  time  have  risen  from  two  and  three 
guineas,  the  price  which  it  has  now  happily  arrived  at, 
to  double  or  triple  that  sum ;  and  English  physicians 
might,  and  probably  would,  have  been  at  the  same  time 
the  most  ignorant  and  quackish  in  the  world."1 

This  trenchant  reasoning  seems  to  have  prevailed. 
1  Letter  to  Cullen,  London,  20th  September  1774. 


160  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

At  any  rate,  the  idea  of  obtaining  governmental  inter- 
ference was  dropped.  Some  time  afterwards,  however, 
Dr.  Cullen  took  an  opportunity  of  pointing  out  that 
there  is  a  good  deal  more  to  be  said  for  the  corporate 
regulation  of  medicine  than  for  ordinary  trade  guilds. 
Adam  Smith  probably  pushed  his  argument  for  free 
trade  in  medical  degrees  to  this  extreme  mainly  from 
anxiety  to  prevent  the  interference  of  an  unwise 
Government  in  his  favourite  universities,  though 
partly  no  doubt  because  he  thought  fraudulent  com- 
petition better  than  none,  partly  again  for  love  of 
maintaining  a  paradox.  A  more  spacious  handling  of 
this  theme  is  found  in  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  more 
especially  in  the  famous  tenth  chapter  of  the  first 
book,  with  its  account  of  "  Inequalities  occasioned  by 
the  Policy  of  Europe,"  and  in  a  later  criticism  of  uni- 
versities. 

During  his  stay  in  London  Smith  was  in  close 
intercourse  with  the  ruling  kings  of  art,  science,  and 
letters,  as  well  as  with  some  of  the  leading  statesmen. 
We  hear  of  him  in  January  1775  with  Johnson,  Burke, 
and  Gibbon  at  a  dinner  given  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 
In  December,  Horace  Walpole  met  him  at  Beauclerk's. 
With  Gibbon,  as  we  have  seen,  he  attended  Dr.  William 
Hunter's  lectures  on  Anatomy.  Hume's  letters  to  him 
were  addressed  to  the  British  Coffee  House  in  Cockspur 
Street,  a  club  kept  by  a  clever  sister  of  Bishop  Douglas 
and  much  favoured  by  Scots  in  London,  though  Gold- 
smith, Reynolds,  Garrick,  and  Richard  Cumberland 
were  also  members.  In  1775  he  was  elected  a  member 
of  the  famous  Literary  Club  which  met  at  the  Turk's 
Head  in  Gerrard  Street.  The  members  present  on 
the   night   of    his    election   were   Gibbon,    Reynolds, 


vin.]  POLITICS  AND  STUDY,  1766-76  161 

Beauclerk,   and   Sir  William   Jones,    three   of   whom 
appear  in  Dean  Barnard's  lines  : — 

"  If  I  have  thoughts  and  can't  express  'em, 
Gibbon  shall  teach  me  how  to  dress  'em 

In  form  select  and  terse  ; 
Jones  teach  me  modesty  and  Greek, 
Smith  how  to  think,  Burke  how  to  speak, 

And  Beauclerk  to  converse." 

The  still  small  voice  of  a  detractor  was  heard : 
Boswell  wrote  to  a  friend  that  with  Smith's  accession 
the  club  had  "  lost  its  select  merit." 

All  this  time  the  fatal  quarrel  with  America  was 
drawing  near.  Upon  this,  as  upon  all  other  economical 
questions,  Smith  was  in  full  sympathy  with  Burke, 
"  the  only  man  I  ever  knew  who  thinks  on  economic 
subjects  exactly  as  I  do,  without  any  previous  com- 
munications having  passed  between  us."  This  com- 
pliment, as  we  know,  was  highly  valued  by  the  author 
of  the  speech  on  American  Taxation.  But  Smith 
had  another  friend  and  counsellor  for  his  critical 
chapter  on  the  colonies  and  their  administration. 
Dr.  Franklin  is  reported  to  have  said,  that  "  the  cele- 
brated Adam  Smith  when  writing  his  Wealth  of  Nations 
was  in  the  habit  of  bringing  chapter  after  chapter  as 
he  composed  it  to  himself,  Dr.  Price,  and  others  of  the 
literati " ;  that  he  would  then  patiently  hear  their 
observations,  sometimes  submitting  to  write  whole 
chapters  anew,  and  even  to  reverse  some  of  his 
propositions.  Franklin's  remark  has  probably  been 
inaccurately  reported.  We  know  from  one  of  Smith's 
letters  that  he  had  not  a  high  opinion  of  Dr.  Price 
as  an  economist ;  but  Parton,  Franklin's  biographer, 
justly    points   to   the    countless  colonial  illustrations 

L 


162  ADAM  SMITH  [chap.  viii. 

with  which  the  Wealth  of  Nations  abounds,  and  to  that 
intimate  knowledge  of  American  conditions  which 
Franklin  was  of  all  men  the  best  fitted  to  impart. 
And  there  is  internal  evidence  in  the  text  itself  that 
the  important  chapter  on  the  colonies  in  Book  IV.  was 
written,  or  at  least  considerably  enlarged,  in  the  years 
1773  and  1774.  Franklin's  papers  contained  problems 
which  seemed  to  have  been  jotted  down  at  meetings  of 
philosophers,  and  no  doubt  Price  as  well  as  Smith 
would  take  a  prominent  part.  At  Glasgow  Smith 
must  have  heard  a  good  deal  about  the  colonial  trade  ; 
but  colonial  policy  did  not  become  the  question  of  the 
day  until  after  he  left,  and  in  the  lectures  there  is 
nothing  about  the  colonies.  We  may  conjecture  that 
the  idea  of  devoting  a  large  section  of  the  book  to  the 
history  and  economics  of  colonial  dominions  did  not 
strike  him  until  after  his  return  from  France.  The 
great  debates  of  1766  and  of  the  early  seventies,  the 
intimate  acquaintance  with  British  policy  and  finance 
in  large  outline  and  in  official  detail,  which  his 
friendships  with  Burke  and  Franklin,  with  Oswald, 
Pulteney,  and  Shelburne  helped  him  to  acquire,  and 
his  eagerness  to  prevent  war  and  to  discredit  expendi- 
ture on  colonial  establishments,  or  indeed  upon  any 
provinces  which  could  not  support  themselves,  con- 
spired to  make  colonial  policy  and  imperial  expenditure 
large  and  imposing  themes  in  the  Wealth  of  Nations. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE    WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND   ITS   CRITICS 

In  February  1776  Hume  wrote  to  Smith:  "By  all 
accounts  your  book  has  been  printed  long  ago,  yet 
it  has  never  been  so  much  as  advertised.  What  is 
the  reason  1  If  you  wait  till  the  fate  of  America  be 
decided,  you  may  wait  long."  Declining  health  made 
him  anxious  to  accelerate  his  friend's  return.  "  Your 
chamber  in  my  house  is  always  unoccupied."  In  the 
same  letter  there  are  a  few  words  about  the  war  with 
the  American  colonies.  The  two  friends  were  at  one 
in  condemning  the  war  and  the  colonial  policy  which 
provoked  it.  But  Smith  was  more  deeply  moved 
by  the  impending  disaster,  and  was  eagerly  endeavour- 
ing to  induce  the  Government  to  adopt  means  of  con- 
ciliation before  it  was  too  late.  He  was  therefore — so 
the  Duke  of  Buccleuch  had  informed  Hume — "very 
zealous"  in  American  affairs.  "My  notion,"  writes 
Hume,  cool  as  ever  where  only  national  interests  were 
concerned,  "  is  that  this  matter  is  not  so  important  as 
is  commonly  imagined.  If  I  be  mistaken,  I  shall  pro- 
bably correct  my  error  when  I  see  you,  or  read  you. 
Our  navigation  and  general  commerce  may  suffer  more 
than  our  manufactures.  Should  London  fall  as  much 
in  size  as  I  have  done,  it  will  be  the  better.  It  is 
nothing  but  a  hulk  of  bad  and  unclean  humours." 

163 


164  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

At  last,  on  the  9th  of  March,  An  Inquiry  into  tlie 
Nature  and  Causes  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations  was  published 
in  two  sumptuous  quarto  volumes.  The  price  was 
thirty-six  shillings,  and  the  first  edition,  probably  of  a 
thousand  copies,  was  sold  out  in  six  months;  though 
the  second,  a  reprint  with  some  few  corrections  and 
additions,  was  not  issued  till  1778.  The  publishers 
were  Strahan  and  Cadell.  Smith  is  said  to  have 
received  £500  for  the  first  edition,  the  sum  paid  by 
the  same  firm  to  Steuart  for  his  Principles  of  Political 
Economy  (1767).  The  first  volume  of  Gibbon's  History 
came  out  at  the  same  time.  Hume  was  immensely 
taken  with  both  performances.  He  told  Gibbon  that 
he  should  never  have  expected  such  a  work  from  the 
pen  of  an  Englishman.     To  Smith  he  wrote  : — 

"  Euge  !  Belle  !  Dear  Mr.  Smith, — I  am  much  pleased 
with  your  performance  ;  and  the  perusal  of  it  has  taken  me 
from  a  state  of  great  anxiety.  It  was  a  work  of  so  much 
expectation,  by  yourself,  by  your  friends,  and  by  the  public, 
that  I  trembled  for  its  appearance,  but  am  now  much  relieved. 
Not  but  that  the  reading  of  it  necessarily  requires  so  much 
attention,  and  the  public  is  disposed  to  give  so  little,  that  I 
shall  still  doubt  for  some  time  of  its  being  at  first  very 
popular.  But  it  has  depth,  and  solidity,  and  acuteness,  and 
is  so  much  illustrated  by  curious  facts  that  it  must  at  last 
take  the  public  attention.  It  is  probably  much  improved 
by  your  last  abode  in  London.  If  you  were  here  at  my  fire- 
side, I  should  dispute  some  of  your  principles.  I  cannot 
think  that  the  rent  of  farms  makes  any  part  of  the  price  of 
the  produce,  but  that  the  price  is  determined  altogether  by 
the  quantity  and  the  demand." 

On  the  publication  of  the  book  Sir  John  Pringle 
observed  to  Boswell  that  Dr.  Smith,  who  had  never 
been  in  trade,  could  not  be  expected  to  write  well  on 


ix.]      WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND  ITS  CRITICS      165 

that  subject  any  more  than  a  lawyer  upon  physic. 
Boswell  passed  this  on  to  Johnson,  who  replied :  "  He 
is  mistaken,  sir ;  a  man  who  has  never  been  engaged  in 
trade  may  undoubtedly  write  well  upon  trade,  and 
there  is  nothing  which  requires  more  to  be  illus- 
trated by  philosophy  than  trade  does."  Johnson 
added,  as  if  he  had  already  turned  over  with  profit 
the  pages  of  the  new  book,  that  trade  promises  what 
is  more  valuable  than  money,  "the  reciprocation  of 
the  peculiar  advantages  of  different  countries."  Gibbon 
was  no  less  delighted  than  Hume  with  the  new  philo- 
sophy. "  What  an  excellent  work  !  "  he  exclaimed ; 
"an  extensive  science  in  a  single  book,  and  the  most 
profound  ideas  expressed  in  the  most  perspicuous 
language."  Gibbon's  judgment  has  been  confirmed  by 
the  tribunals  of  Time,  and  the  world  places  the  Wealth 
of  Nations  in  the  small  library  of  masterpieces  that 
receives,  as  the  years  roll  by,  so  surprisingly  few 
accessions. 

In  a  science  like  political  economy,  every  new  teacher 
endeavours  to  correct  the  mistakes  of  his  predecessors, 
to  supply  their  deficiencies,  and  generally  to  teach  the 
science  in  its  last  stage  of  perfection.  Some  of  Smith's 
successors  were  themselves  men  of  genius,  and  proved 
equal  to  the  task  of  displacing  their  master  for  a 
few  years.  But  those  who  have  seen  the  rise  and 
decline  of  Mill  may  well  ask  with  Wakefield,  who 
had  seen  Smith  superseded  by  Malthus  and  Bicardo 
and  M'Culloch :  How  is  it  that  the  Wealth  of  Nations, 
all  these  things  notwithstanding,  is  still  read  and 
studied  and  quoted  as  if  it  had  been  published 
yesterday  1  How  is  it  that  British  statesmen  from 
Pitt  to  Gladstone  should  have  sought  authority  in  the 


166  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

same  pages  1  After  all,  the  question  we  are  asking  is 
a  wider  one.  Why  is  this  one  of  the  great  books 
of  the  world  1  We  would  like  to  say  simply :  It 
is  the  world's  verdict;  take  it  or  not  as  you  like; 
but  whether  you  like  it  or  not,  it  stands.  One  can- 
not argue  with  universal  consent.  Still  something 
may  be  due  in  extenuation  of  fame.  In  the  first 
place,  Adam  Smith  writes  as  one  who  has  applied 
his  mind  to  definite  problems  without  neglecting  a 
wider  field  of  letters  and  learning.  The  store  is  rich 
and  the  steward  is  bounteous.  So  far  from  being  an 
isolated  study  of  abstract  doctrines,  political  economy 
is  treated  from  first  to  last  as  a  branch  of  the  study  of 
mankind,  a  criticism  of  their  manners  and  customs,  of 
national  history,  administration,  and  law.  Even  when 
silencing  a  battery  or  throwing  up  a  counterwork  he  is 
very  seldom  disputatious  or  doctrinal.  "  He  appears," 
says  Wakefield,  "to  be  engaged  in  composing  not  a 
theory,  but  a  history  of  national  wealth.  He  dwells 
indeed  on  principles,  but  nearly  always,  as  it  seems, 
for  the  purpose  of  explaining  the  facts  which  he 
narrates."  There  is  no  scarecrow  of  thin  abstractions 
and  deterrent  terminology  flapping  over  the  pages  to 
warn  men  off  a  dismal  science.  The  laws  of  wealth 
unfold  themselves  like  the  incidents  in  a  well-laid 
plot.  It  was  left  for  his  successors  to  show  how  dull 
economics  might  be,  and  how  suitable  for  the  empty 
class-room  of  an  endowed  chair. 

Hume,  as  we  have  seen,  on  reading  the  Wealth  of 
Nations  foretold  that  its  curious  facts  would  help  to 
gain  the  public  ear.  Adam  Smith  was  full  of  out- 
of-the-way  learning.  He  collected  stories  of  all  the 
adventures  in  the  New  World,  and  loved  to  sift  the 


ix.]     WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND  ITS  CRITICS      167 

wheat  from  the  chaff  of  a  traveller's  tale.  Conse- 
quently his  book  abounds  in  oddities  about  his  own 
and  bygone  ages,  and  a  few  of  these  with  necessary 
abbreviations  may  be  retailed  : — 

There  is  at  this  day  a  village  in  Scotland,  where  it  is 
not  uncommon,  I  am  told,  for  a  workman  to  carry  nails  instead 
of  money  to  the  baker's  shop  or  to  the  alehouse. 

In  North  America,  provisions  are  much  cheaper  and 
wages  much  higher  than  in  England.  In  the  province  of 
New  York,  common  labourers  earn  three  shillings  and  sixpence 
currency,  equal  to  two  shillings  sterling  a  day. 

Till  after  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  an  English 
mason's  wages  were  much  higher  than  those  of  a  parish  priest. 
In  spite  of  a  statute  of  Anne  there  are  still  [1776]  many 
curacies  under  £20  a  year. 

A  middling  farmer  in  France  will  sometimes  have  400 
fowls  in  his  yard. 

Between  1339  and  1776  the  price  of  the  best  English 
•wool  has  fallen  from  30s.  to  21s.  the  tod,  after  allowing  for 
the  changes  in  the  currency.  The  price  of  a  yard  of  the  finest 
cloth  has  fallen,  after  making  the  same  allowances,  from 
£3,  3s.  6d.  to  £1,  Is.  since  1487. 

The  first  person  that  wore  stockings  in  England  is  said 
to  have  been  Queen  Elizabeth.  She  received  them  as  a  pre- 
sent from  the  Spanish  Ambassador. 

What  was  formerly  a  seat  of  the  family  of  Seymour,  is 
now  an  inn  upon  the  Bath  road.  The  marriage  bed  of  James 
the  First  of  Great  Britain,  which  his  Queen  brought  with  her 
from  Denmark  as  a  present  fit  for  a  sovereign  to  make  to  a 
sovereign,  was  a  few  years  ago  the  ornament  of  an  alehouse  at 
Dunfermline. 

The  wool  of  the  southern  counties  of  Scotland  is,  a  great 
part  of  it,  after  a  long  land  carriage  through  very  bad  roads, 
manufactured  in  Yorkshire,  for  want  of  a  capital  to  manu- 
facture it  at  home. 


168  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

In  England,  owing  to  the  laws  of  settlement,  it  is  often 
more  difficult  for  a  poor  man  to  pass  the  artificial  boundary 
of  a  parish  than  an  arm  of  the  sea  or  a  ridge  of  high  moun- 
tains. 

There  is  no  city  in  Europe  in  which  house  rent  is  dearer 
than  in  London,  and  yet  I  know  no  capital  in  which  a  furnished 
apartment  can  be  hired  so  cheap. 

At  Buenos  Ayres  forty  years  ago  Is.  9|d.  was  the  ordin- 
ary price  of  an  ox. 

A  piece  of  fine  cloth  which  weighs  only  eighty  pounds, 
contains  in  it  the  price  not  only  of  eighty  pounds  weight  of 
wool,  but  sometimes  of  several  thousand  weight  of  corn,  the 
maintenance  of  the  different  working  people,  and  of  their 
immediate  employers. 

In  the  white  herring  fishery  it  has  been  common  for  vessels 
to  fit  out  for  the  purpose  of  catching  not  the  fish  but  the 
bounty.  In  1759,  when  the  bounty  was  at  fifty  shillings  the 
ton,  each  barrel  of  sea  sticks  cost  Government  in  bounties 
alone  ,£113,  15s.  ;  each  barrel  of  merchantable  herrings 
^159,  7s.  6d. 

The  Wealth  of  Nations  is  a  book  to  be  read  as  it 
was  written.  More  than  half  its  nutriment  and  all  its 
fascination  is  lost  if  you  cut  away  the  theory  from  its 
historical  setting.1  Osteology  is  fatal  to  economics. 
That  is  why  the  Wealth  of  Nations  is  far  better  suited 
to  beginners  than  an  ordinary  child's  primer.  But  as 
the  Lectures  on  Police  were  the  author's  own  first 
draft,  the  reader  of  these  pages  is  already  cognisant 
of  a  great  part  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations. 

It  remains  to  indicate  some  of  the  principal  acces- 
sions to  Smith's  scheme  of  political  economy  after  he 

1  Mr.  Macpherson's  recent  abridgment  is  the  only  tolerable 
one  I  know  of,  and  that  solely  because  it  carefully  retains  many 
of  the  finest  chapters,  and  leaves  the  flesh  on  the  bones. 


ix.]      WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND  ITS  CRITICS      169 

left  Glasgow.  The  task  has  been  made  easy  by 
Mr.  Cannan.  In  the  first  place,  the  chapters  on 
Wages,  Profit,  and  Rent  in  the  First  Book,  and  on 
Taxation  in  the  last,  mark  a  wonderful  development 
and  improvement  of  the  imperfect  and  rudimentary 
treatment  accorded  to  these  subjects  in  the  Lectures. 
Then  again,  chapter  ix.  of  Book  IV.  on  the  French 
economists  and  their  agricultural  system  is  entirely 
new.  The  system  of  the  e'conomistes  is  described 
in  that  chapter  as  one  which,  with  all  its  imperfec- 
tions, was  perhaps  the  nearest  approximation  to  the 
truth  that  had  yet  been  published  on  the  subject  of 
political  economy.  We  are  told  that  its  adherents, 
a  pretty  considerable  sect,  had  done  good  service  to 
their  country  by  influencing  in  some  measure  the 
public  administration  in  favour  of  agriculture.  They 
all  followed  "  implicitly  and  without  any  sensible  varia- 
tion the  doctrine  of  Mr.  Quesnai,"  whose  Economical 
Table  they  regarded  with  extraordinary  veneration, 
ranking  it  with  writing  and  money  as  one  of  the  three 
great  inventions  made  by  mankind. 

Quesnai's  Table  showed  three  sorts  of  expenses : 
Productive  expenses,  Expenses  of  revenue,  and  Sterile 
expenses,  with  "their  source,  their  distribution,  their 
effects,  their  reproduction,  their  relation  to  each  other, 
to  population,  to  agriculture,  to  manufactures,  to 
commerce,  and  to  the  general  riches  of  the  nation." 
In  the  Wealth  of  Nations  this  idea  is  followed  out  and 
improved;  for  the  author,  having  shown  in  his  First 
Book  how  the  average  produce  of  labour  is  regulated 
by  the  skilled  dexterity  and  judgment  with  which  it 
is  generally  applied,  shows  in  his  Second  that  it  is 
further  regulated    "by   the   proportion    between   the 


170  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

number  of  those  who  are  employed  in  useful  labour, 
and  that  of  those  who  are  not  so  employed."  It 
would  be  absurd  to  call  him  a  plagiarist ;  it  would  be 
equally  absurd  to  deny  that  the  French  School  had 
opened  his  eyes  to  the  necessity  for  analysing  the 
distribution  of  wealth  no  less  carefully  than  its  pro- 
duction. As  the  division  of  labour  came  from  the 
Greek,  so  the  distribution  of  the  annual  produce  of 
wealth  into  wages,  profit,  and  rent,  came  from  the 
French  philosophers.  And  we  cannot  forget  that 
Quesnai's  death  alone  prevented  Smith  from  dedicating 
his  book  to  the  inventor  of  the  Economic  Table. 

Equally  important  from  the  standpoint  of  theory, 
and  far  more  so  from  that  of  the  legislator  and  states- 
man, are  the  chapters  upon  taxation.  There  the 
lectures,  though  they  made  a  distinct  advance  upon 
Hume,  were  rudimentary.  But  modern  ingenuity 
cannot  improve  upon  the  four  practical  maxims  or 
canons  of  taxation  : — 

1.  The  subjects  of  every  State  should  contribute  in 

proportion  to  their  respective  abilities. 

2.  A  tax  should  be  certain,  and  not  arbitrary. 

3.  A  tax  should  be  levied  at  the  time  and  in  the 

way  most  convenient  to  the  taxpayer. 

4.  Every  tax  ought  to  be  so  contrived  as  both  to 

take  out  and  to  keep  out  of  the  pockets  of 
the  people  as  little  as  possible  over  and  above 
what  it  brings  into  the  public  treasury. 

Axiomatic  as  these  rules  appear  to  us,  in  Adam 
Smith's  day  they  were  new  and  startling :  they  had 
never  been  formulated  or  practised  in  any  country. 


ix.]     WEALTH  OF  NATION'S  AND  ITS  CRITICS     171 

Smith  was  "  the  first  that  ever  burst "  upon  the  silent 
sea  of  taxation.  He  put  into  the  hands  of  statesmen, 
who  had  hitherto  been  groping  and  blundering  in  the 
dark,  a  perfect  touchstone  by  which  to  test  projects  old 
and  new  of  raising  revenue.  The  idea  of  considering 
the  taxpayer  was  itself  a  novelty.  It  is  true  that  the 
criterion  of  ability  had  been  adopted  in  the  Elizabethan 
poor-rate,  but  there  was  no  other  trace  of  it  in  the 
fiscal  system  of  Great  Britain,  which  was  on  the  whole, 
even  at  that  time,  the  best  in  Europe. 

Smith  treated  taxation  as  one  of  the  causes  that 
impede  the  progress  of  wealth.  It  is  characteristic  of 
the  man  that  he  does  not  regard  any  tax,  even  the 
land-tax,  as  good  in  itself,  but  only  praises  it  com- 
paratively as  a  lesser  evil.  Burke  himself  was  not  a 
more  consistent  or  persistent  preacher  of  economy. 
Not  that  Smith  was  jealous  of  expenditure  on  roads 
and  communication,  public  instruction,  and  other  ser- 
vices which  were  plainly  beneficial  to  the  whole  society, 
and  could  not  be  left  to  private  enterprise.  He  has  no 
pedantic  objection  to  the  State  managing  a  business 
that  it  is  capable  of  managing  well.  He  mentions 
without  disapproval  that  the  republic  of  Hamburg 
makes  money  out  of  a  lombard,1  a  wine  cellar,  and 
an  apothecary's  shop.  But  the  post-office  "  is  perhaps 
the  only  mercantile  project  which  has  been  successfully 
managed  by  every  sort  of  Government." 

Of  all  taxes  he  most  dislikes  taxes  upon  the 
necessaries  of  life.  Yet  he  does  not  deny  that  if, 
after  all  the  proper  sources  of  taxation  have  been 
exhausted,  revenue  is  still  required,  "improper"  taxes 
must  be  imposed.  To  preserve  their  land  from  the 
1  A  public  pawnshop. 


172  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

sea,  and  their  republic  from  its  enemies,  the  Dutch 
had  had  recourse  to  very  objectionable  taxes,  and  he 
does  not  blame  them  if  they  could  in  no  other  way 
maintain  that  republican  form  of  government,  which 
he  regards  as  "the  principal  support  of  the  present 
grandeur  of  Holland."  But  he  makes  it  very  plain 
indeed  in  his  last,  and  perhaps  his  greatest,  chapter  "  Of 
Public  Debts,"  that  the  miseries  and  embarrassments  of 
Europe  are  due  in  the  main  to  profligate  expenditure 
of  all  kinds,  and  especially  to  the  immense  sums  wasted 
on  wars  that  ought  to  have  been  avoided. 

Therefore  a  new  commercial  policy  would  not  suffice. 
New  principles  of  foreign  and  colonial  policy  must  be 
introduced,  and  we  must  sweep  away  for  ever  the  cob- 
web occasions  and  pretexts  that  had  drawn  us  into  so 
many  futile  conflicts.  But  he  was  equally  anxious  to 
promote  economy  in  time  of  peace.  He  was  alarmed 
at  the  progress  of  the  enormous  debts  "which  at 
present  oppress  and  will  in  the  long-run  probably  ruin 
all  the  great  nations  of  Europe."  He  saw  that  when 
war  has  once  been  begun,  no  limit  can  be  set  to 
expenditure.  But  some  limit,  he  thought,  could  and 
should  be  set  to  debt ;  and  therefore  he  pleaded  for  a 
policy  of  strict  economy  in  time  of  peace,  and  pleaded 
so  effectively  that  it  was  adopted  by  Pitt  in  the 
breathing-space  between  the  American  and  the  French 
wars.  But  for  that  policy,  which  reduced  armaments 
to  a  point  considered  by  some  dangerously  low,  Great 
Britain  could  hardly  have  stood  the  stress  and  strain 
of  her  long-drawn  conflict  with  Napoleon. 

To  thrif  tlessness  in  time  of  peace  Smith  attributes 
some  of  the  peculiar  evils  that  attend  modern  war- 
fare.  His  remarks  sound  strangely  familiar  in  our  ears, 


ix.]      WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND  ITS  CRITICS      173 

as  though  they  had  been  written  by  a  philosopher  of 
yesterday  about  the  events  of  the  day  before  : — 

"The  ordinary  expense  of  the  greater  part  of  modern 
governments  in  time  of  peace  being  equal  or  nearly  equal  to 
their  ordinary  revenue,  when  war  comes  they  are  both 
unwilling  and  unable  to  increase  their  revenue  in  proportion 
to  the  increase  of  their  expense.  They  are  unwilling,  for  fear 
of  offending  the  people,  who  by  so  great  and  so  sudden  an 
increase  of  taxes,  would  soon  be  disgusted  with  the  war  ;  and 
they  are  unable,  from  not  well  knowing  what  taxes  would  be 
sufficient  to  produce  the  revenue  wanted.  The  facility  of 
borrowing  delivers  them  from  the  embarrassment  which  this 
fear  and  inability  would  otherwise  occasion.  ...  In  great 
empires,  the  people  who  live  in  the  capital,  and  in  the  pro- 
vinces remote  from  the  scene  of  action,  feel,  many  of  them, 
scarce  any  inconveniency  from  the  war,  but  enjoy  at  their 
ease  the  amusement  of  reading  in  the  newspapers  the  exploits 
of  their  own  fleets  and  armies.  To  them  this  amusement 
compensates  the  small  difference  between  the  taxes  which 
they  pay  on  account  of  the  war,  and  those  which  they  had 
been  accustomed  to  pay  in  time  of  peace.  They  are  com- 
monly dissatisfied  with  the  return  of  peace,  which  puts  an 
end  to  their  amusement,  and  to  a  thousand  visionary  hopes  of 
conquest  and  national  glory." 

Indeed,  he  adds,  the  return  of  peace  seldom  relieves 
a  nation  from  the  greater  part  of  the  taxes  imposed 
during  the  war.  They  are  still  required  to  pay  the 
interest  on  the  newly  created  debt. 

Of  all  Smith's  theories,  or  rather  opinions  —  for 
after  all,  the  question  is  a  mixed  one  of  morals  and 
expediency  which  cannot  be  answered  by  abstract 
formulas  of  right  or  rules  of  logic  —  not  the  least 
important  or  characteristic  is  his  doctrine  of  empire 
and  imperial  expenditure.  The  view  now  cherished 
and  practised  in  the  great  bureaucracies  of  Europe, 


174  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

and  often  advanced  by  socialists  under  the  plausibly 
scientific  phraseology  of  a  theory  of  consumption,  that 
national  profusion  is  a  good  thing  in  itself,  was  not 
then  propagated  or  defended  by  responsible  persons. 
But,  though  thrift  was  on  their  lips,  their  hands  were 
often  in  the  public  purse;  and  it  could  not  be  said 
that  warnings  against  the  outlay  of  national  resources 
upon  useless  or  mischievous  objects  were  unneeded. 
Appropriately  enough,  the  very  first  time,  so  far  as  we 
know,  that  the  Wealth  of  Nations  was  cited  in  Parlia- 
ment, it  was  cited  as  an  authority  against  the  policy 
of  accumulating  armaments  in  time  of  peace.  In  his 
speech  on  the  address  (November  11,  1783)  Fox  is 
reported  to  have  said  :  "  There  was  a  maxim  laid  down 
in  an  excellent  book  upon  the  Wealth  of  Nations, 
which  had  been  ridiculed  for  its  simplicity,  but  which 
was  indisputable  as  to  its  truth.  In  that  book  it  was 
stated  that  the  only  way  to  become  rich  was  to  manage 
matters  so  as  to  make  one's  income  exceed  one's 
expenses.  The  proper  line  of  conduct,  therefore,  was 
by  a  well-directed  economy  to  retrench  every  current 
expense,  and  to  make  as  large  a  saving  during  the 
peace  as  possible." l 

But  Smith  took  no  narrow  or  penurious  view  of 
national  economy.  He  did  not  prize  thrift  for  its  own 
sake.  Such  a  charge  might  possibly  be  brought  by  an 
unfriendly  critic  against  Ricardo  or  Joseph  Hume,  but 
assuredly  not  against  Adam  Smith.     Like  Burke  and 

1  Charles  Butler,  the  learned  Catholic  lawyer,  once  men- 
tioned to  Fox  that  he  had  never  read  the  Wealth  of  Nations. 
"To  tell  you  the  truth,"  said  Fox,  "nor  I  either.  There  is 
something  in  all  these  subjects  which  passes  my  comprehen- 
sion ;  something  so  wide  that  I  could  never  embrace  them 
myself  or  find  any  one  who  did." 


ix.]     WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND  ITS  CRITICS     175 

Cobden,  lie  valued  frugality  in  nations  as  a  safeguard 
against  wrong-doing,  a  prime  source  of  security  and 
independence,  and  a  perpetual  check  upon  the  lust 
of  conquest  and  aggrandisement  that  so  often  lurks 
under  the  respectable  uniform  of  a  missionary  civilisa- 
tion. As  he  describes  the  discoveries  of  the  New  World 
and  the  beginnings  of  modern  empire,  a  poignant  epithet 
or  a  burning  phrase  tells  the  lesson  of  many  a  romantic 
scramble  for  the  fleece  that  was  so  seldom  golden,  of 
many  a  credulous  hunt  for  a  fugitive  Eldorado. 

After  showing  that  the  gold  and  silver  mines  of 
their  colonial  empires  had  neither  augmented  the 
capital  nor  promoted  the  industry  of  the  two  "  beggarly 
countries  "  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  he  carefully  distin- 
guishes between  the  natural  advantages  of  a  colonial 
trade  and  the  artificial  disadvantages  caused  by  the 
policy  of  monopoly,  that  is  by  the  endeavours  of  the 
mother  country  to  restrict  that  trade  to  her  own 
merchants.  If  the  governments  of  Europe  had  been 
content  to  found  colonies,  and  see  that  they  were  well 
and  justly  administered,  the  full  benefit  of  opening  up 
new  countries,  and  of  interchanging  their  products, 
would  have  been  felt.  But  unhappily  every  country 
that  had  acquired  foreign  possessions  sought  to  engross 
their  trade,  thus  injuring  its  own  people  and  the  colonial 
or  subject  race  by  checking  the  natural  growth  of 
commerce,  and  forcing  it  into  unnatural  channels.  This 
so-called  mercantilist  policy  was  therefore  just  as  dis- 
astrous to  commerce  as  to  morals. 

"  To  found  a  great  empire  for  the  sole  purpose  of  raising  up 
a  people  of  customers,  may  at  first  sight  appear  a  project  fit 
only  for  a  nation  of  shopkeepers.  It  is,  however,  a  project 
altogether  unfit  for  a  nation  of  shopkeepers  ;  but  extremely 


176  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

fit  for  a  nation  whose  government  is  influenced  by  shopkeepers. 
Such  statesmen,  and  such  statesmen  only,  are  capable  of 
fancying  that  they  will  find  some  advantage  in  employing  the 
blood  and  treasure  of  their  fellow-citizens,  to  found  and 
maintain  such  an  empire." 

Far  worse  in  their  results  than  the  regular  conquests 
of  government,  were  the  irregular  acquisitions  of  com- 
panies formed  for  trading  purposes ;  and  one  of  the 
masterly  chapters  added  to  the  third  edition  of  his 
book  (1784)  traces  the  misery,  injustice,  and  com- 
mercial failure  which  had  attended  the  rule  of  the 
East  India  Company. 

"  It  is  a  very  singular  government,  in  which  every  member 
of  the  administration  wishes  to  get  out  of  the  country,  and 
consequently  to  have  done  with  the  government,  as  soon  as 
he  can,  and  to  whose  interest,  the  day  after  he  has  left  it,  and 
carried  his  whole  fortune  with  him,  it  is  perfectly  indifferent 
though  the  whole  country  was  swallowed  up  by  an  earthquake. 

What,  then,  was  the  practical  policy  which  Smith 
recommended  to  the  British  Government  1  It  had  two 
main  ends  in  view.  First,  to  pay  off  the  debt ;  secondly, 
to  lessen  and  gradually  remove  all  taxes  which  raised 
the  prices  of  articles  consumed  by  the  labouring 
classes,  or  interfered  with  the  free  course  of  trade. 
Writing  as  he  did,  in  1775,  on  the  eve  of  war,  his 
thoughts  naturally  turned  to  the  colonies,  then  so  rich 
and  prosperous,  which  had  contributed  nothing  to  the 
income  but  so  heavily  to  the  expenditure  and  debt  of 
the  British  crown. 

Smith  would  have  liked  the  British  Government  to 
renounce  its  authority  over  the  colonies,  and  so  not 
only  relieve  the  revenue  from  a  serious  annual  drain, 
but  at   the   same   time   convert   the  Americans  from 


ix.]     WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND  ITS  CRITICS     177 

turbulent  and  fractious  subjects  to  the  most  faithful, 
affectionate,  and  generous  allies.  But  seeing  that 
neither  people  nor  government  would  brook  such  a 
mortification,  he  suggested  that  to  save  the  situation 
they  should  try,  by  a  scheme  of  union,  to  break  up  the 
American  confederacy  and  reconstitute  the  empire 
on  a  fair  basis.  Let  us  give,  he  said,  to  each 
colony  which  will  detach  itself  from  the  general  con- 
federacy a  number  of  representatives  in  parliament 
proportionate  to  its  contribution,  and  so  open  up  a 
new  and  dazzling  object  of  ambition  to  the  leading 
men  of  each  colony.  If  this  or  some  other  method 
were  not  fallen  upon  of  conciliating  the  Americans,  it 
was  not  probable  that  they  would  voluntarily  submit, 
and  "  they  are  very  weak  who  flatter  themselves  that, 
in  the  state  to  which  things  have  come,  our  colonies 
will  be  easily  conquered  by  force  alone."  The  leaders 
of  the  Congress  had  risen  suddenly  from  tradesmen 
and  attorneys  to  be  statesmen  and  legislators  of  an 
extensive  empire  "  which  seems  very  likely  to  become 
one  of  the  greatest  and  most  formidable  that  ever  was 
in  the  world."  Nay,  if  the  union  he  suggested  as  an 
alternative  to  peaceful  and  friendly  parting  were  con- 
stituted, he  predicted  that  in  the  course  of  little  more 
than  a  century  the  empire  would  draw  more  revenue 
from  America  than  from  the  mother  country ;  and 
"  the  seat  of  the  empire  would  then  naturally  remove 
itself  to  that  part  of  the  empire  which  contributed  most 
to  the  general  defence  and  support  of  the  whole."  It 
was  such  a  scheme  as  this  that  Burke  ridiculed  when 
he  pictured  "a  shipload  of  legislators"  becalmed  in 
mid- Atlantic. 

As  a  politician  Smith   was   doubtless  attracted  by 
M 


178  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

the  prospect  of  introducing  a  strong  democratic  and 
republican  strain  into  parliament,  though  he  pre- 
tends to  think  that  the  balance  of  the  constitution 
would  not  be  affected.  He  points  out  also  that  the 
constitution  would  be  completed  by  such  a  union,  and 
was  imperfect  without  it,  for  "the  assembly  which 
deliberates  and  decides  concerning  the  affairs  of  every 
part  of  the  empire,  in  order  to  be  properly  informed, 
ought  certainly  to  have  representatives  from  every 
part  of  it."1  In  the  last  chapter  of  the  Wealth  of 
Nations  he  describes  the  project  as  at  worst  "a  new 
Utopia,  less  amusing,  certainly,  but  no  more  useless 
and  chimerical  than  the  old  one,"  and  shows  how  the 
British  system  of  taxation  might  be  extended  along 
with  representation  in  parliament  to  the  colonies  in 
such  a  way  as  to  produce  a  great  addition  to  the 
imperial  revenue  and  a  large  permanent  surplus  for 
the  redemption  of  debt.  In  this  way  the  debt  could 
be  discharged  in  a  comparatively  short  period,  and 
as  revenue  would  be  continually  released,  the  most 
oppressive  taxes  could  be  gradually  reduced  and 
remitted.  By  this  prescription  "  the  at  present  debili- 
tated and  languishing  vigour  of  the  empire"  might 
be  completely  restored.  Labourers  would  soon  be 
enabled  to  live  better,  to  work  cheaper,  and  to  send 
their  goods  cheaper  to  market.  Cheapness  would 
increase  demand,  and  the  increased  demand  for  goods 
would  mean  an  increased  demand  for  the  labour  of 
those  who  produced  them.  This  again  would  tend 
both  to  raise  the  numbers  and  improve  the  circum- 
stances of  the  labouring  poor.  Lastly,  as  the  con- 
suming power  of  the  community  grew,  there  would  be 
1  See  Book  iv.  chap.  vii. 


ix.]     WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND  ITS  CRITICS     179 

a  growth  in  the  revenue  from  all  those  articles  of  con- 
sumption which  remained  subject  to  taxation. 

The  plan  of  an  imperial  parliament  and  imperial 
taxation  could  not  be  realised.  Smith  himself  saw 
that  the  economic  and  constitutional  objections  were 
great,  though  "  not  unsurmoun table."  Upon  one 
point,  however,  he  was  clear.  If  it  were  impracticable 
to  extend  the  area  of  taxation,  recourse  must  be  had 
to  a  reduction  of  expenditure ;  and  the  most  proper 
means  of  retrenchment  would  be  to  put  a  stop  to  all 
military  outlay  in  and  on  the  colonies.  If  no  revenue 
could  be  drawn  from  the  colonies,  the  peace  establish- 
ments "ought  certainly  to  be  saved  altogether."  Yet 
the  peace  establishments  were  insignificant  compared 
with  what  wars  for  the  defence  of  the  colonies  had 
cost.  But  for  colonial  wars  the  national  debt  would 
have  been  paid  off.  It  was  urged  that  the  colonies 
were  provinces  of  the  British  Empire  : — 

"  But  countries  which  contribute  neither  revenue  nor 
military  force  towards  the  support  of  the  empire,  cannot  be 
considered  as  provinces.  They  may  perhaps  be  considered  as 
appendages,  as  a  sort  of  splendid  and  showy  equipage  of  the 
empire.  But  if  the  empire  can  no  longer  support  the  expence 
of  keeping  up  this  equipage,  it  ought  certainly  to  lay  it  down  ; 
and  if  it  cannot  raise  its  revenue  in  proportion  to  its  expence, 
it  ought,  at  least,  to  accommodate  its  expence  to  its  revenue. 
If  the  colonies,  notwithstanding  their  refusal  to  submit  to 
British  taxes,  are  still  to  be  considered  as  provinces  of  the 
British  Empire,  their  defence  in  some  future  war  may  cost 
Great  Britain  as  great  an  expence  as  it  ever  has  done  in  any 
former  war.  The  rulers  of  Great  Britain  have,  for  more  than 
a  century  past,  amused  the  people  with  the  imagination  that 
they  possessed  a  great  empire  on  the  west  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  This  empire,  however,  has  hitherto  existed  in 
imagination    only.     It    has    hitherto    been,  not    an   empire, 


180  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

but  the  project  of  an  empire  ;  not  a  gold  mine,  but  the 
project  of  a  gold  mine  ;  a  project  which  has  cost,  which 
continues  to  cost,  and  which,  if  pursued  in  the  same  way  as 
it  has  been  hitherto,  is  likely  to  cost,  immense  expence, 
without  being  likely  to  bring  any  profit :  for  the  effects  of  the 
monopoly  of  the  colony  trade,  it  has  been  shewn,  are,  to  the 
great  body  of  the  people,  mere  loss  instead  of  profit.  It  is 
surely  now  time  that  our  rulers  should  either  realise  this 
golden  dream,  in  which  they  have  been  indulging  themselves, 
perhaps,  as  well  as  the  people  ;  or  that  they  should  awake 
from  it  themselves,  and  endeavour  to  awaken  the  people.  If 
the  project  cannot  be  completed,  it  ought  to  be  given  up. 
If  any  of  the  provinces  of  the  British  Empire  cannot  be  made 
to  contribute  towards  the  support  of  the  whole  empire,  it  is 
surely  time  that  Great  Britain  should  free  herself  from  the 
expence  of  defending  those  provinces  in  time  of  war,  and  of 
supporting  any  part  of  their  civil  or  military  establishments 
in  time  of  peace,  and  endeavour  to  accommodate  her  future 
views  and  designs  to  the  real  mediocrity  of  her  circum- 
stances." 

With  these  ever-memorable  and  resounding  words  he 
ends  the  great  Inquiry,  not  vaguely  admonishing  some 
shadowy  cosmopolis  of  economic  men,  but  straightly 
beckoning  his  own  countrymen  and  their  rulers  off 
the  broad  way  of  wantonness  and  mischief  to  the 
harder  paths  of  an  inglorious  but  fruitful  economy. 


The  reader  of  this  little  volume  will  not  expect  or 
desire  an  excursus  upon  the  multitudinous  treatises, 
critical  and  apologetical,  that  have  sprung  out  of  the 
Wealth  of  Nations.  The  vitality  of  the  book  may  be 
measured  by  the  numbers  of  its  detractors  and  de- 
fenders. Among  the  former  the  modern  historical 
school  of  Germany  claims  notice ;  for  has  not  its  dis- 
tinguished and   erudite   leader,   Professor    Schmoller, 


ix.]     WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND  ITS  CRITICS     181 

placed  Adam  Smith  somewhere  below  Galiani,  Necker, 
Hoffmann,  Thiinen,  and  Rumelin  1 

Perhaps  the  reason  why  economists  of  the  modern 
historical  school  so  often  fail  as  valuers  of  men  and 
books,  is  that  they  are  enjoined  by  the  very  laws  of 
their  existence  to  be  "learned";  and  "learning"  re- 
quires that  obscure  and  deservedly  forgotten  writers 
should  be  rediscovered  and  magnified  at  the  expense 
of  surviving  greatness.  Too  many  modern  critics  of 
"  Smithianismus,"  instead  of  attending  to  the  author's 
own  works  and  so  penetrating  his  philosophy,  seek  him 
elsewhere,  rummage  in  the  literature  of  the  period,  over- 
haul every  book,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  characterise 
it  in  the  text,  and  place  its  title-page  and  date  in  a 
footnote.  Such  labour,  however  useful  to  others,  is 
apt  to  destroy  the  perspective  and  warp  the  judgment. 

A  man  who  snares  facts  is  of  all  men  the  most  likely 
to  be  caught  in  a  theoretical  trap.  Here  is  an  example. 
In  1759  Adam  Smith  wrote  a  book  on  moral  sentiments 
which  he  founded  on  the  natural  instinct  of  sympathy. 
In  1776  he  wrote  a  book  on  economic  sentiments, 
which  he  derived  from  self-love  or  the  desire  of  man  to 
improve  his  position.  Upon  these  facts  the  following 
theory  is  built  up  by  the  historical  school  of  Germany  : — 

"Smith  was  an  Idealist  as  long  as  he  lived  in  England 
under  the  influence  of  Hutcheson  and  Hume.  After  living  in 
France  for  three  years,  and  coming  into  close  touch  with  the 
materialism  that  prevailed  there,  he  returned  a  Materialist. 
This  is  the  simple  explanation  of  the  contrast  between  his 
Theory  (1759),  written  before  his  journey  to  France,  and  his 
Wealth  of  Nations  (1776),  composed  after  his  return."  * 

1  See  Skarzinski's  Adam  Smith  (1878),  quoted  by  Oncken, 
Economic  Journal,  vol.  vii.  p.  445. 


182  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Most  of  this  nonsense  has  been  blown  to  the  four 
winds  by  Mr.  Cannan's  publication  of  the  Lectures 
delivered  at  Glasgow  before  Adam  Smith  went  to 
France ;  but  a  vast  quantity  of  similar  rubbish  is  em- 
bedded in  the  economic  literature  of  the  last  thirty  or 
forty  years,  and  a  difficulty  which  learned  investi- 
gators have  invented  and  solved  has  been  dignified  in 
Germany  by  the  name  of  "  Das  Adam  Smith  Problem." 

The  truth,  as  Smith  conceived  it,  is  that  men  are 
actuated  at  different  times  by  different  motives,  benevo- 
lent, selfish,  or  mixed.  The  moral  criterion  of  an  action 
is  :  will  it  help  society,  will  it  benefit  others,  will  it  be 
approved  by  the  Impartial  Spectator  1  The  economic 
criterion  of  an  action  is :  will  it  benefit  me,  will  it  be 
profitable,  will  it  increase  my  income  1  Smith  built 
his  theory  of  industrial  and  commercial  life  upon 
the  assumption  that  wage-earners  and  profit-makers 
are  generally  actuated  by  the  desire  to  get  as  high 
wages  and  profits  as  possible.  If  this  is  not  the 
general  and  predominant  motive  in  one  great  sphere  of 
activity,  the  production  and  distribution  of  wealth,  the 
Wealth  of  Nations  is  a  vain  feat  of  the  imagination, 
and  political  economy  is  not  a  dismal  science  but  a 
dismal  fiction.  But  there  is  nothing  whatever  either 
to  excite  surprise  or  to  suggest  inconsistency  in  the 
circumstance  that  a  philosopher,  who  (to  adopt  the 
modern  jargon  of  philosophy)  distinguished  between 
self-regarding  and  other-regarding  emotions,  should 
have  formed  the  first  group  into  a  system  of  economics 
and  the  second  into  a  system  of  ethics. 

If  this  comes  of  learning,  an  even  more  extravagant 
charge  has  been  preferred  by  an  emotional  school. 
A  heated  imagination,  certainly  not  encumbered  with 


ix.]     WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND  ITS  CRITICS     183 

facts,  and  informed  only  that  Adam  Smith  was  the 
founder  of  an  odious  science,  denounced  him  as  "the 
half-bred  and  half-witted  Scotchman"  who  taught  "the 
deliberate  blasphemy" — "Thou  shalt  hate  the  Lord 
thy  God,  damn  His  Laws,  and  covet  thy  neighbour's 
goods."  The  same  authority  declares  that  he  "formally, 
in  the  name  of  the  philosophers  of  Scotland,  set  up  this 
opposite  God,  on  the  hill  of  cursing  against  blessing, 
Ebal  against  Gerizim" — a  God  who  "allows  usury , 
delights  in  strife  and  contention,  and  is  very  particular 
about  everybody's  going  to  his  synagogue  on  Sunday." J 
These  three  characteristics  of  Adam  Smith's  deity  were 
unfortunately  chosen ;  for,  as  it  happens,  he  disliked 
usury  so  much  that  he  defended  the  laws  which  had 
vainly  sought  to  prevent  high  rates  of  interest;  dis- 
approved vehemently  of  war,  which  he  regarded  as 
one  of  the  deadliest  enemies  of  human  progress,  and 
protested  against  the  idea  that  a  perfect  Deity  could 
possibly  desire  His  creatures  to  abase  themselves  before 
Him.  It  is  sad  to  think  that  to  get  his  gold  the 
Euskinian  must  pass  so  much  sand  through  his  mind. 
The  Fors  Clavigera,  with  all  its  passionate  intensity  and 
high-strung  emotion,  is  a  standing  warning  to  preachers 
not  to  abuse  their  masters,  and  to  learn  a  subject  before 
they  teach  it.  Let  those  who  climb  so  recklessly  on 
Ebal  deliver  their  curses  from  a  safer  foothold. 

Perhaps  what  most  impresses  one  in  reading 
the  Wealth  of  Nations  is  its  pre-vision.  The  author 
seems  to  have  been  able  to  project  himself  into  the 
centuries.  He  saw  the  blades  of  wheat  as  well  as 
the  tares  that  were  springing  up ;  and  it  would  be 
hard  to  mention  a  single  one  of  his  forecasts  and 
1  See  Ruskin's  Fors  Clavigera,  letters  62  and  72. 


184  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Utopias  that  has  not  been  realised  in  some  degree,  or 
at  least  taken  shape  as  a  political  project  during  the 
last  century.  He  was,  of  course,  above  all,  the  pre- 
cursor of  Cobden  and  of  the  philosophic  Radicals, 
who  drew  from  him  not  only  their  economics,  but  their 
foreign  and  colonial  policy.  It  is  perhaps  remarkable, 
after  so  fair  a  beginning  had  been  made  in  his  own 
lifetime,  that  the  triumph  of  his  doctrines  was  so 
long  delayed.  But  most  of  what  Shelburne,  Pitt,  and 
Eden  did  for  commercial  emancipation  in  the  eighties 
was  swept  away  by  the  French  war.  And  when 
Napoleon  fell,  England  was  so  weak,  tyranny  and 
superstition  were  so  ground  into  the  principles  of  her 
governing  classes,  that  she  seemed  to  be,  in  Milton's 
phrase,  beyond  the  manhood  of  a  Roman  recovery. 
For  many  years  Smith's  disciples,  and  even  the  inde- 
fatigable Bentham,  laboured  almost  in  vain.  Parliament 
was  ignorant  and  bigoted.  Until  a  great  agitator 
arose,  very  little  could  be  done ;  and  the  great  agitator 
did  not  arrive  quite  soon  enough  to  fulfil  Pulteney's 
prediction  that  Smith  would  convert  his  own  genera- 
tion and  rule  the  next. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
practical  influence  of  Smith's  teaching  was  felt  princi- 
pally in  France  and  Germany.  In  France,  as  we  have 
seen,  Count  Mollien  was  a  professed  disciple  of  the  new 
economy.  "It  was  then,"  he  said,  in  reviewing  the 
events  of  his  youth,  "that  I  read  an  English  book 
which  the  disciples  M.  Turgot  had  left  eulogised  in 
the  highest  terms — the  work  of  Adam  Smith.  I  had 
especially  remarked  how  warmly  the  venerable  and 
judicious  Malesherbes  used  to  speak  of  it — this  book 
so  disparaged  by  all  the  men  of  the  old  routine."  It 
is  perhaps  the  most  dazzling  of  all  Smith's  posthumous 


ix.]      WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND  ITS  CRITICS     185 

triumphs,  that  he,  through  Mollien,  should  have  been 
the  philosophic  guide  of  Napoleonic  finance. 

But  his  conquest  of  Germany  was  equally  startling 
and  momentous.  The  movement  in  that  country  can 
be  directly  traced  to  the  university  of  Konigsberg, 
where  Kraus  began  to  lecture  on  the  Wealth  of 
Nations  in  1781.  He  soon  gained  the  ears  of  the 
official  class.  In  East  Prussia,  vexatious  dues  and 
taxes,  with  a  multitude  of  feudal  embarrassments, 
were  removed  from  internal  commerce,  and  in  spite 
of  much  opposition  Smith's  principles  spread  all  over 
Germany.  By  the  close  of  the  Napoleonic  war  the  of- 
ficials as  well  as  the  professional  economists  were  con- 
verts to  the  new  ideas.  Stein  and  Hardenberg,  two 
truly  great  reformers,  led  the  way.  Year  by  year  com- 
mercial restrictions  were  removed,  and  though  jealousy 
of  Prussia  stood  in  the  way  of  complete  commercial 
union,  the  North  German  Zollverein  constituted  a  great 
advance.  It  removed  the  barriers  between  Prussia  and 
the  adjoining  States,  and  reduced  external  duties  to 
such  an  extent  that  in  1827  Huskisson  cited  the 
example  set  by  Germany  to  prove  the  wisdom  of 
abandoning  a  restrictive  policy.  Even  Friedrich  List, 
who  sought  for  political  reasons  to  build  up  a  counter 
theory  of  protection  for  infant  industries,  asserted 
that  free  trade  was  the  right  policy  for  England 
and  for  every  adult  nation.  List,  who  often  wrote 
with  a  bitterness  and  malice  that  only  readers  of  his 
unhappy  life  can  excuse,  admitted  in  his  principal 
work  "  the  great  services  of  Adam  Smith  "  : — 

"He  was  the  first  to  introduce  successfully  into  political 
economy  the  analytical  method.  By  means  of  this  method 
and  of  an  unusual  sharpness  of  intellectual  vision  he  illumi- 
nated the  most  important  branches  of  a  science,  which  before 


186  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

his  time  had  lain  in  almost  utter  darkness.  Before  Adam 
Smith  there  was  only  a  policy  (Praxis) ;  his  labours  first 
made  it  possible  to  build  up  a  science  of  political  economy  ; 
and  for  that  achievement  he  has  given  the  world  a  greater 
mass  of  materials  than  all  his  predecessors  and  successors." 

Mill's  Political  Economy  is  the  only  English  treatise 
that  can  be  compared  with  the  Wealth  of  Nations. 
Indeed  in  his  preface  Mill  challenges  the  comparison, 
but  adds  that  "political  economy,  properly  so-called, 
has  grown  up  almost  from  infancy  since  the  time 
of  Adam  Smith."  He  finds  the  Wealth  of  Nations 
"in  many  parts  obsolete,  and  in  all  imperfect,"  and 
though  he  speaks  generously  enough  of  Adam  Smith's 
"admirable  success  in  reference  to  the  philosophy  of 
the  [eighteenth]  century,"  it  is  plain  from  this  preface 
and  from  the  autobiography  that  the  later  economist 
felt  he  could  look  down  upon  the  earlier  from  the 
serene  temples  of  increased  knowledge  and  better 
social  ideas.  Mill's  confidence  was  not  only  justified 
for  the  time  being  by  unqualified  success  in  the  sense 
that  his  own  book  at  once  became,  and  remained 
for  a  generation,  the  principal  text-book  of  English 
students,  it  was  also  based  upon  what  appear  at  first 
sight  to  be  enormous  advantages.  A  more  logical 
and  systematic  arrangement  is  adopted.  Errors  are 
corrected ;  digressions  are  few ;  and  in  order  to 
attain  scientific  exactitude,  historical  illustrations  from 
the  conditions  and  experience  of  nations  are  replaced 
by  more  precise  instances  of  imaginary  societies 
labelled  A,  B,  C.  Technical  terms  and  definitions 
make  it  easy  for  the  student  to  move  lightly  about  in 
an  artificial  atmosphere. 

But  in  this  realm  of  political   economy,  is  it  not 


ix.]     WEALTH  OF  NATIONS  AND  ITS  CRITICS     187 

well  to  keep  a  foot,  or  at  least  an  eye,  on  the  ground  1 
In  Mill's  treatise  there  is  a  danger  of  mistaking 
words  for  things.  It  is  never  so  in  Smith's  inquiry. 
He  gave  twenty  years  to  a  task  for  which  Mill 
could  hardly  spare  as  many  months.  With  a  gift 
for  exposition,  certainly  not  inferior,  he  had  what 
Mill  had  not,  a  love  of  the  concrete,  a  faculty  for  the 
picturesque,  and  withal  a  nervous  force  and  vigour  in 
argument  quite  peculiar  to  himself.  It  has  been  said 
that  Smith  hunted  his  subject  with  the  inveteracy  of 
a  sportsman.  With  a  wonderful  knowledge  of  history, 
law,  philosophy,  and  letters,  he  combined  an  intuitive 
insight  into  the  motives  of  men  and  the  unseen 
mechanism  of  society.  At  the  same  time,  by  restricting 
his  horizon  to  wealth  and  its  phenomena,  he  was  able 
to  see  how  men  always  had  acted  and  always  would 
act  under  certain  circumstances,  and  by  what  rules 
public  finance  should  be  governed.  This  is  the  secret 
of  his  success  in  making  political  economy  queen  of 
the  useful  arts,  and  in  raising  her  alone  among  political 
studies  to  the  dignity  of  a  science.  "I  think,"  said 
Robert  Lowe,  "that  Adam  Smith  is  entitled  to  the 
merit,  and  the  unique  merit,  among  all  men  who 
ever  lived  in  the  world,  of  having  foun  led  a  deductive 
and  demonstrative  science  of  human  actions  and  con- 
duct." True,  he  is  not  a  systematic  writer.  He  does 
not  shine,  as  so  many  inferior  geniuses  have  shone,  in 
the  art  of  comparing,  correlating,  and  harmonising  the 
great  truths  which  it  is  his  glory  to  have  discovered 
and  illustrated.  He  puts  us,  as  Lowe  remarked  with 
his  usual  felicity,  in  mind  of  the  Sages  of  Ancient 
Greece,  who,  after  lives  of  labour  and  study,  bequeathed 
half  a  dozen  maxims  for  the  guidance  of  mankind. 


CHAPTEK   X 


FREE  TRADE 


One  of  the  least  edifying  features  of  modern  contro- 
versy, and  particularly  of  political  and  economic  con- 
troversy, is  the  habit  of  appealing  to  precedents  and 
authorities  which,  if  honestly  cited,  would  militate 
against  the  opinions  of  the  controversialist.  No 
great  writer  has  suffered  more  of  late  years  from 
this  species  of  misrepresentation  than  Adam  Smith ; 
yet  his  contemporaries  and  immediate  successors  both 
in  England  and  abroad  perfectly  understood  his  drift. 
When  Pitt  and  Shelburne  declared  themselves  disciples 
of  Smith,  they  thereby  declared  themselves  free 
traders,  and  Pitt's  commercial  policy  from  1784  to 
1794  was  simply  an  attempt  to  carry  out  Smith's 
views.  Resolute  retrenchment,  customs'  reform,  the 
commercial  treaty  with  France,  reduction  of  debt,  were 
all  projected  under  the  inspiration  and  countenance  of 
Mr.  Commissioner  Smith. 

Nor  did  the  English  economists,  from  Eicardo  to 
Mill,  ever  suggest  that  Adam  Smith  had  doubts  about 
the  main  doctrine  of  his  book.  In  France  and  Germany 
his  opinions  were  eagerly  embraced.  To  translate,  in- 
terpret, and  systematise  the  Wealth  of  Nations  was  the 
main  function  of  continental  economists  in  the  early 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century ;  and  its  influence  was 

188 


chap,  x.]  FREE  TRADE  189 

seen  in  a  rapid  and  radical  modification  of  commercial 
policy.  Internal  barriers  were  swept  away,  feudal 
restrictions  abolished,  and  tariffs  reduced.  When  the 
waves  of  reaction — political  rather  than  economic — 
began  to  roll  in,  and  "  national "  economists  tried  to  re- 
construct the  case  for  protection,  they  paid  Smith  the 
compliment  of  a  violent  onslaught.  "  Smithianismus  " 
then  became  a  term  of  abuse  in  protectionist  circles, 
and  so  remained  until  it  was  superseded  by  the  equally 
cacophonous  "  Manchesterthum."  It  was  in  England 
that  the  idea  was  started  of  dressing  up  Adam  Smith 
as  a  protectionist.  While  List  was  inveighing  against 
"  cosmopolitical  economy,"  our  own  free  traders  in 
their  agitation  against  the  corn  laws  found  themselves 
confronted  with  a  new  interpretation  of  their  prophet. 
At  one  of  the  League  meetings  (July  3,  1844)  Cobden 
gave  a  humorous  description  of  the  way  in  which  some 
protectionist  pamphleteers  tried  to  adapt  Adam  Smith's 
opinions  to  their  own  views.  "  They  have  done  it  in 
this  manner :  they  took  a  passage,  and  with  the 
scissors  snipped  and  cut  away  at  it,  until  by  paring  off 
the  ends  of  sentences  and  leaving  out  all  the  rest  of 
the  passage,  they  managed  to  make  Adam  Smith 
appear  in  some  sense  as  a  monopolist.  When  we  re- 
ferred to  the  volume  itself,  we  found  out  their  tricks, 
and  exposed  them.  I  tell  you  what  their  argument 
reminds  me  of.  An  anecdote  is  told  of  an  atheist  who 
once  asserted  that  there  was  no  God,  and  said  he 
would  prove  it  from  Scripture.  He  selected  that 
passage  from  the  Psalms  which  says,  'The  fool  hath 
said  in  his  heart  there  is  no  God.'  He  then  cut  out 
the  whole  passage,  except  the  words,  'there  is  no  God,' 
and  brought  it  forward  as  proof  of  his  statement." 


190  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

If  these  false  notions  about  Adam  Smith's  economic 
opinions  had  died  with  the  pamphlets  of  obscure  pro- 
tectionists sixty  years  ago,  no  more  need  have  been 
said.  But  as  they  have  been  revived  again  and  again 
in  England,  Germany,  and  the  United  States,  and 
solemnly  adopted  with  all  the  plausibility  of  seemingly 
circumstantial  moderation  by  persons  of  European 
repute,  we  shall  examine  the  passages  in  the  original, 
in  order  to  settle  the  question  whether  Smith  can  be 
made  to  serve  as  "the  spiritual  father"  of  a  com- 
mercial policy  not  essentially  different  from  the  one 
his  criticism  destroyed. 

By  a  policy  of  free  trade,  which  Adam  Smith  said 
was  the  best  means  a  statesman  could  adopt  of  promot- 
ing national  wealth  and  commerce,  he  meant  a  policy 
that  would  relieve  commerce  and  industry  from  all 
internal  dues  and  all  external  duties  or  prohibitions. 
Anything  that  would  bring  other  nations  into  line 
commanded  his  warm  sympathy  and  support.  But 
what  he  desired  as  a  patriot  was  a  policy  of  free 
imports  irrespective  of  what  other  countries  might  do. 
The  object  of  a  national,  as  of  an  individual  policy  in 
trade,  should  be  to  buy  in  the  cheapest  and  sell  in  the 
dearest  market.1  This  will  appear  at  once  from  the 
so-called  exceptions  or  limitations  by  which  Smith  is 
supposed  to  have  watered  down  what  Cobden's  bio- 
grapher has  called  "the  pure  milk  of  the  Cobdenic  word. " 

The  Act  of  Navigation  is  the  first  of  "  the  two  cases 
in  which  it  will  generally  be  advantageous  to  lay  some 
burden  upon  foreign  for  the  encouragement  of  domestic 

1  Smith  avoids  the  error  so  commonly  committed  in  modern 
doctrines  of  international  trade,  of  regarding  a  nation  as  a 
trading  unit. 


X.]  FREE  TRADE  191 

industry."1  But  by  "advantageous"  Smith  does  not 
mean  "likely  to  enrich."  It  is  a  measure  of  defence, 
and  is  unfavourable  to  trade. 

" The  defence  of  Great  Britain,"  he  says,  "depends 
very  much  upon  the  number  of  its  sailors  and  shipping. 
The  Act  of  Navigation,  therefore,  very  properly  endea- 
vours to  give  the  sailors  and  shipping  of  Great  Britain 
the  monopoly  of  the  trade  of  their  own  country. "  The 
Act  is  justified  as  a  pure  measure  of  defence,  though  it 
aims  at  monopoly,  and  offends  against  the  principles  of 
free  trade.  Lest,  however,  there  should  be  any  doubt 
upon  the  point,  he  goes  on  to  make  it  quite  clear  that, 
while  he  praises  the  Act,  as  he  might  praise  the  build- 
ing of  a  man-of-war,  he  condemns  it  as  an  economic 
measure.  In  the  passage  immediately  following  there 
are  two  sentences  which  exactly  give  the  point  of 
view,  and  should  help  to  dissipate  the  false  impression 
(accepted  and  circulated  by  authorities  like  Hasbach, 
who  ought  to  know  better)  that  Smith's  doctrines  are 
very  different  from  Cobden's  : — 

"  The  Act  of  Navigation  is  not  favourable  to  foreign  com- 
merce, or  to  the  growth  of  that  opulence  which  can  arise 
from  it.  ...  As  defence,  however,  is  of  much  more  importance 
than  opulence,  the  Act  of  Navigation  is,  perhaps,  the  wisest 
of  all  the  commercial  regulations  of  England." 

How  completely  the  Navigation  Act  failed  as  a  com- 
mercial measure  appears  from  a  number  of  passages  in 
the  Wealth  of  Nations  which  together  completely  refute 
the  fallacy,  so  generally  adopted  by  English  historians, 

1  The  second  case  is  simple  and  uncontroversial.  If  there  is 
an  excise  duty  upon  a  home  product,  it  seems  reasonable,  says 
Smith,  that  an  equal  tax  should  be  imposed  in  the  shape  of  an 
import  duty  upon  the  same  product  imported  from  abroad. 


192  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

that  it  ruined  the  Dutch,  enriched  England,  and  gave 
her  a  commercial  and  naval  supremacy  which  she  could 
not  otherwise  have  achieved.  Holland,  he  says,  is 
richer  than  England ;  she  gained  the  whole  carrying 
trade  of  France  during  the  late  war ;  she  still  remains 
"the  great  emporium  of  European  goods,"  and  so  forth. 
All  that  Smith  claims  for  the  Act  is  that  it  helped  to 
secure  the  country  a  sufficient  supply  of  seamen  for  the 
navy  in  time  of  war. 

Further,  as  there  are  two  cases  (the  necessity  of 
defence  and  the  propriety  of  countervailing  an  excise 
duty)  "in  which  it  will  generally  be  advantageous 
to  lay  some  burden  upon  foreign  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  domestic  industry,  so,"  continues  Smith, 
"there  are  two  others  in  which  it  may  sometimes 
be  a  matter  of  deliberation "  :  in  the  one,  how  far  it 
is  proper  to  continue  the  free  importation  of  goods 
from  a  particular  foreign  country  j  in  the  other,  how, 
and  how  far,  free  importation,  after  it  has  been  inter- 
rupted for  some  time,  should  be  restored.  The  first 
case  of  doubt  is  that  of  doing  evil  by  retaliation  in 
order  that  good,  in  the  shape  of  freer  trade,  may  come. 
Occasionally,  he  writes,  it  may  be  wise  to  retaliate, 
"  when  some  nation  restrains  by  high  duties  or  pro- 
hibitions "  the  importations  of  our  manufactures. 
After  giving  some  examples  of  commercial  retaliation, 
one  of  which  ended  in  war,  Adam  Smith  lays  down 
the  cautious  rule  that  there  may  be  good  policy  in 
retaliations  of  this  kind,  but  only  where  there  is  a 
probability  that  retaliatory  duties  will  procure  the 
repeal  of  the  high  duties  or  prohibitions  complained  of. 
"The  recovery  of  a  great  foreign  market  will  generally 
more   than   compensate   the   transitory   inconvenience 


x  ]  FREE  TRADE  193 

of  paying  dearer  during  a  short  time  for  some  sorts 
of  things."  He  leans  strongly  against  the  policy,  partly 
because  he  is  unwilling  to  trust  "that  insidious  and 
crafty  animal  vulgarly  called  a  statesman  "  to  use  such 
a  weapon  wisely ;  partly  because  you  rarely  benefit  the 
sufferers  and  always  injure  other  classes  of  your  own 
citizens,  than  those  whom  you  are  trying  to  assist. 

The  second  case  of  doubt  was  merely  one  of  expedi- 
ency— whether  free  trade  should  be  introduced  quickly 
or  slowly.  "In  what  manner  the  natural  system  of 
perfect  liberty  and  justice  ought  gradually  to  be  re- 
stored "  Smith  left  to  the  wisdom  of  future  statesmen 
and  legislators  to  determine.  But  he  maintained  that 
the  evils  attending  the  remedy  were  usually  exagger- 
ated, and  this  view  proved  to  be  correct  when  Sir 
Eobert  Peel  and  Mr.  Gladstone  effected  the  trans- 
formation by  five  mighty  strokes  of  the  fiscal  axe. 

We  have  now  examined  all  the  passages  which  could 
give  colour  to  the  impression  that  Smith  was  only  a 
free  trader — on  conditions.  That  part  of  the  task  is 
easy  enough.  The  difficulty  begins  when  we  seek 
positive  arguments  against  protective  or  differential 
taxation.  The  woodman  of  Mount  Ida  was  not  more 
embarrassed  in  choosing  a  tree  to  fell.  The  Wealth  of 
Nations  is  a  forest  of  full-grown  arguments  for  free 
trade.  The  more  one  reads  it,  the  more  irresistibly 
is  one  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  the  science  of 
political  economy,  as  established  in  this  masterpiece, 
is  inextricably  bound  up  with  the  doctrine  of  free 
trade.  Every  assumption  and  conclusion,  his  criti- 
cisms of  previous  and  existing  theories,  laws,  customs, 
and  opinions,  his  surveys  of  the  commercial  and 
colonial  policy  of  Europe,  all  bear  us  directly  or 
N 


194  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

indirectly  to  the  same  goal.  Yet  there  is  one 
principle  which  seems  to  take  precedence  in  the  argu- 
ment. In  the  division  of  labour,  Smith  found  a  key 
to  the  growth  of  wealth  and  to  the  enlargement 
of  the  material  comforts  that  are  necessary  to  the 
progress  of  refinement  and  civilisation.  The  division 
of  labour  is  therefore  his  starting-point,  and  instead 
of  leaving  it  where  Plato  and  Aristotle  let  it  rest — a 
barren  formula  of  economic  society — he  sets  it  vigor- 
ously in  motion,  and  converts  it,  as  it  were,  from  a 
slumbering  lake  into  a  vast  reservoir  that  irrigates  and 
fertilises  the  whole  plain  of  inquiry.  And  had  he  been 
confined  to  one  argument  for  free  trade,  this  is  pro- 
bably the  one  he  would  have  adopted. 

If  we  were  asked  to  select  that  passage  in  the 
Wealth  of  Nations  which  gives  most  succinctly  the  broad 
objections  to  a  protective  policy,  we  should  turn  to  the 
second  chapter  of  the  fourth  book,  "  Of  restraints  upon 
the  importation  from  foreign  countries  of  such  goods 
as  can  be  produced  at  home."  He  begins  by  admitting 
that  high  duties  or  prohibitions  can  secure  to  home 
producers  a  monopoly  of  the  home  market.  At  that 
time  British  graziers  enjoyed  the  monopoly  of  provid- 
ing the  home  market  with  butcher-meat.  The  manu- 
facturers of  wool  and  silk  were  equally  favoured,  and 
the  duties  on  foreign  linen,  for  which  Hume  had  pleaded 
in  one  of  his  commercial  essays,  had  lately  been  raised. 

Smith  thereupon  asks  whether  these  protective 
measures,  by  giving  an  artificial  direction  to  industry, 
are  likely  to  be  of  general  benefit  to  society.  The  first 
answer  is  that  in  business  every  man  seeks  his  own 
advantage,  that  every  man  knows  his  own  business 
best,  and  that  "the  study  of  his  own  advantage  natur- 


x.]  FREE  TRADE  195 

ally,  or  rather  necessarily,  leads  him  to  prefer  that 
employment  which  is  most  advantageous  to  society." 
Though  intending  only  his  own  gain,  he  is  "led  by 
an  invisible  hand  to  promote  an  end  which  was  no  part 
of  his  intention."  Indeed  the  selfish  trader — the 
economic  man,  if  you  like — promotes  the  interest  of 
society  far  more  effectually  than  those  who  affect  to 
trade  for  the  public  good.  Is  it  not  evident  that  the 
individual  himself,  though  he  may  make  mistakes, 
can  judge  best  how  and  where  to  employ  his  own 
labour  or  capital  ?  The  statesman  or  lawgiver  who 
attempted  to  direct  private  people  how  to  manage  their 
business  and  spend  their  money  would  not  only  be 
overloaded  with  work,  but  would  be  assuming  an 
authority  "  which  could  safely  be  trusted,  not  only  to 
no  single  person,  but  to  no  council  or  senate  whatever." 
From  this  consideration  we  pass  almost  insensibly  into 
the  argument  from  the  division  of  labour. 

"  It  is  the  maxim  of  every  prudent  master  of  a  family  never 
to  attempt  to  make  at  home  what  it  will  cost  him  more  to 
make  than  to  buy.  The  taylor  does  not  attempt  to  make  his 
own  shoes,  but  buys  them  of  the  shoemaker.  The  shoemaker 
does  not  attempt  to  make  his  own  clothes,  but  employs  a  taylor. 
The  farmer  attempts  to  make  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  but 
employs  those  different  artificers.  All  of  them  find  it  for  their 
interest  to  employ  their  whole  industry  in  a  way  in  which  they 
have  some  advantage  over  their  neighbours,  and  to  purchase 
with  a  part  of  its  produce,  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  with 
the  price  of  a  part  of  it,  whatever  else  they  have  occasion  for. 

"What  is  prudence  in  the  conduct  of  every  private  family, 
can  scarce  be  folly  in  that  of  a  great  kingdom.  If  a  foreign 
country  can  supply  us  with  a  commodity  cheaper  than  we 
ourselves  can  make  it,  better  buy  it  of  them  with  some  part 
of  the  produce  of  our  own  industry,  employed  in  a  way  in 
which  we  have  some  advantage." 


196  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Capital  and  industry  are  certainly  not  employed  to 
the  greatest  advantage  when  they  are  directed  to  objects 
which  under  natural  conditions  could  be  bought  cheaper 
than  they  could  be  made.  It  is  true,  he  adds,  antici- 
pating the  infant  industry  argument  of  Alexander 
Hamilton,  List,  and  Mill,  that  "by  means  of  such 
regulations  a  particular  manufacture  may  sometimes 
be  acquired  sooner  than  it  could  have  been  otherwise, 
and  after  a  certain  time  may  be  made  at  home  as  cheap 
or  cheaper  than  in  the  foreign  country."  But  cut  bono  ? 
Even  in  this  case  "  it  will  by  no  means  follow  that  the 
sum  total  either  of  its  industry  or  of  its  revenue  can 
ever  be  augmented  by  any  such  regulation."  One 
immediate  effect  of  such  regulations  must  be  to 
diminish  the  revenue  of  the  society,  "and  what 
diminishes  its  revenue  is  certainly  not  very  likely  to 
augment  its  capital  faster  than  it  Avould  have  aug- 
mented of  its  own  accord  had  both  capital  and  industry 
been  left  to  find  out  their  natural  employments." 

But  though  reason  led  him  by  every  road  to  a  com- 
plete system  of  liberty  as  the  true  end  of  commercial 
policy,  he  despaired  of  its  adoption.  "To  expect  in- 
deed that  freedom  of  trade  should  ever  be  entirely 
restored  in  Great  Britain,  is  as  absurd  as  to  expect 
that  an  Oceana  or  Utopia  should  ever  be  established  in 
it."  Even  if  public  prejudice  were  overcome,  the  re- 
sistance of  private  interests  would  be  unconquerable. 
The  landlords  indeed  had  not  yet  acquired  a  strong 
interest  in  protection.  At  that  time  the  home  supply 
of  wheat  and  oats  in  ordinary  years  was  sufficient,  or 
nearly  so,  for  the  requirements  of  the  population, 
and  prices  were  much  about  the  same  in  England  as 
in  other  European  countries.     The  moving  spirits  of 


x.]  FREE  TRADE  197 

protection  were  master  manufacturers,  who,  "like  an 
overgrown  standing  army,"  had  begun  to  intimidate 
the  legislature. 

"  The  member  of  parliament  who  supports  every  proposal 
for  strengthening  this  monopoly,  is  sure  to  acquire  not  only 
the  reputation  of  understanding  trade,  but  great  popularity 
and  influence  with  an  order  of  men  whose  numbers  and  wealth 
render  them  of  great  importance.  If  he  opposes  them,  on  the 
contrary,  and  still  more,  if  he  has  authority  enough  to  be  able 
to  thwart  them,  neither  the  most  acknowledged  probity,  nor 
the  highest  rank,  nor  the  greatest  public  services,  can  protect 
him  from  the  most  infamous  abuse  and  detraction,  from 
personal  insults,  nor  sometimes  from  real  danger,  arising  from 
the  insolent  outrage  of  furious  and  disappointed  monopolists." 

Under  these  circumstances  it  is  very  surprising  that 
Adam  Smith  should  have  chosen  to  submit  the  corn 
laws  to  so  long  and  destructive  an  analysis.  He  seems 
to  have  foreseen  that  the  great  battle  for  which  he  was 
sounding  the  advance  would  ultimately  rage  round  a 
question  then  almost  academic,  and  that  cheap  food 
would  be  the  keystone  of  the  free  trade  argument. 

After  several  years'  experience  as  a  customs  official, 
Adam  Smith  took  the  opportunity  in  his  third  edition 
(1784)  of  considerably  enlarging  the  Wealth  of  Nations; 
and,  among  other  important  additions,  he  inserted  at 
the  end  of  Book  IV.  a  new  chapter,  entitled  "  Conclu- 
sion of  the  Mercantile  System."  It  is  a  deeply  in- 
structive recital  of  the  extremities  of  absurdity  into 
which  the  British  legislature  had  suffered  itself  to  be 
led  blindfold  by  a  false  theory  and  powerful  interests. 
The  encouragement  of  exportation,  and  the  discourage- 
ment of  importation,  were  the  two  great  engines  by 
which  the  mercantile  system  proposed  to  enrich  every 
country;    but  with  regard  to   some    particular    com- 


198  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

modities,  it  followed  an  opposite  plan :  discouraging 
exports,  and  encouraging  imports.  Thus  it  penalised 
or  prohibited  the  exportation  of  machinery,  wool,  and 
coal ;  nor  was  the  living  instrument,  the  artificer, 
allowed  to  go  free.  Two  statutes  had  been  passed  in 
the  reigns  of  George  I.  and  II.  to  prevent  any  British 
artificer  going  abroad  under  penalty  of  being  declared 
an  alien,  and  forfeiting  all  his  goods  and  chattels.  "  It 
is  unnecessary,  I  imagine,  to  observe  how  contrary 
such  regulations  are  to  the  boasted  liberty  of  the 
subject,  of  which  we  affect  to  be  so  very  jealous ;  but 
which,  in  this  case,  is  so  plainly  sacrificed  to  the  futile 
interests  of  our  merchants  and  manufacturers."  Smith 
is  very  sarcastic  about  regulations  whose  "laudable 
motive"  was  to  extend  British  manufactures,  not  by 
improving  them,  but  by  depressing  those  of  our  neigh- 
bours, and  by  putting  an  end  as  much  as  possible  to 
the  troublesome  competition  of  such  odious  rivals.  He 
then  lays  down  a  maxim  "so  perfectly  self-evident, 
that  it  would  be  absurd  to  attempt  to  prove  it "  : — 

"  Consumption  is  the  sole  end  and  purpose  of  all  production  ; 
and  the  interest  of  the  producer  ought  to  be  attended  to,  only 
so  far  as  it  may  be  necessary  for  promoting  that  of  the  con- 
sumer." 

This  golden  rule  was  everywhere  violated  by  the 
mercantile  system,  which  seemed  to  consider  production 
the  ultimate  object  of  all  industry.  But  the  worst  of 
all  its  inventions  was  the  colonial  monopoly.  "  In  the 
system  of  laws  which  has  been  established  for  the 
management  of  our  American  and  West  Indian  colonies, 
the  interest  of  the  home  consumer  has  been  sacrificed 
to  that  of  the  producer  with  a  more  extravagant  pro- 


x.]  FREE  TRADE  199 

fusion  than  in  all  our  other  commercial  regulations." 
If  there  was  anything  more  odious  to  Adam  Smith 
than  a  protective  duty,  it  was  the  discriminating  or 
preferential  duty  which  had  been  invented  for  the  pur- 
pose of  tying  up  the  trade  between  Great  Britain  and 
her  colonies.  Both  his  "  Utopias  "  were  projected  for 
the  express  purpose  of  putting  an  end  to  a  colonial 
system  which  he  regarded  as  a  dead  weight  upon  both 
the  mother  country  and  her  dependencies. 

The  theory  that  Smith  grew  more  protectionist  as 
he  grew  older  might  be  dismissed  now  that  we  have 
considered  the  lectures,  and  compared  the  first  and 
third  editions  of  the  finished  work.  But  it  is  possible 
that  a  very  desperate  casuist  might  still  find  one 
more  plea  to  urge.  He  might  say :  granted  that 
Smith  remained  to  the  last  a  theoretical  free  trader, 
yet  he  frankly  admitted  it  to  be  a  Utopian  project, 
and  he  would  not,  as  a  responsible  official,  have  advised 
its  adoption.  Did  he  not  accept  a  Crown  appointment 
under  Lord  North's  protectionist  administration,  and 
did  he  not  spend  the  last  years  of  his  life  as  a  prin- 
cipal instrument  in  collecting  the  proceeds  of  a  highly 
protectionist  tariff1?  Nay,  further,  did  he  not  take  a 
carnal  satisfaction  in  the  leaps  and  bounds  by  which  the 
revenue  under  his  charge  was  at  that  time  advancing  1 
In  December  1785  he  wrote  to  William  Eden  : — 

"It  may  perhaps  give  that  gentleman  [Mr.  Rose  of  the 
Treasury]  pleasure  to  be  informed  that  the  net  revenue  arising 
from  the  customs  in  Scotland  is  at  least  four  times  greater 
than  it  was  seven  or  eight  years  ago.  It  has  been  increasing 
rapidly  these  four  or  five  years  past,  and  the  revenue  of  this 
year  has  over-leaped  by  at  least  one  half  the  revenue  of  the 
greatest  former  year.  I  flatter  myself  it  is  likely  to  increase 
still  further." 


200  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Whatever  force  the  argumentum  ad  officium  might 
have  in  a  country  (if  such  there  be)  where  customs 
officials  are  sworn  supporters  of  the  commercial  policy 
of  the  Government,  it  has  none  in  reference  to  Great 
Britain,  and  less  than  none  if  regard  be  had  to  the 
circumstances  of  Smith's  appointment.  There  is  no 
reason  for  supposing  that  Lord  North  had  any  par- 
ticular liking  for  protection,  though  as  the  instrument 
of  the  king's  war  policy  he  had  an  insatiable  craving 
for  revenue,  and  in  pursuit  thereof  adopted,  as  we 
shall  see,  several  taxes  of  a  non-protective  character 
suggested  by  Smith  in  the  first  edition  of  his  treatise. 
Further,  when  the  above  letter  was  written  Pitt  was 
already,  under  the  inspiration  of  this  very  customs 
official,  initiating  a  free  trade  policy,  and  was  actually 
preparing  the  great  commercial  treaty  with  France 
which  he  was  to  carry  into  effect  a  few  months  later. 
A  patriotic  Scotsman  might  well  delight  in  his  country's 
rapid  recovery  from  the  disastrous  effects  of  the  war, 
and  the  author  of  Pitt's  policy  would  naturally  antici- 
pate an  increase  of  prosperity  with  an  expansion  of 
imports  and  a  growth  of  the  revenues  under  his  charge. 

Moreover,  there  is  happily  extant  a  relic  of  the 
correspondence  which  Smith  carried  on  as  financial 
adviser  to  ministers.  In  the  year  1778  Ireland 
was  in  a  terrible  plight.  In  addition  to  all  the  evils 
of  a  minority  rule,  she  suffered  as  a  whole  from  a 
commercial  persecution  by  the  predominant  partner. 
Her  trade  had  been  deliberately  and  malevolently 
throttled  by  the  superior  legislature  of  Great  Britain. 
At  that  time  Irish  wool  could  be  exported  to  no 
country  save  Great  Britain.  Irish  woollens  could 
only  be  exported  from  specified  ports  in  Ireland  to 


x.]  FREE  TRADE  201 

specified  ports  in  Great  Britain.  All  export  of  Irish 
glass  was  absolutely  prohibited.  Worst  of  all,  she  was 
not  allowed  to  send  her  staple  article — cattle — or  even 
salt  provisions  to  the  English  market.  And  she  was 
excluded  from  the  colonial  trade. 

Even  so  cool  a  political  hand  as  Henry  Dundas 
(then  Lord  Advocate),  writing  to  Smith  at  the 
end  of  October  1779,  confessed  that  he  has  been 
shocked  at  the  tone  and  temper  of  the  House  of 
Commons  in  its  dealings  with  Ireland's  prayers  for 
elementary  justice.  But  the  Irish  Parliament  was  now 
demanding  free  trade  in  tones  too  peremptory  to  be 
ignored,  for  they  were  backed  by  a  threatening  dis- 
play of  armed  force.  Dundas  saw  little  objection  to 
acceding  to  some  of  the  requisitions ;  but  he  had  no 
very  clear  grasp  of  the  economics  of  the  situation, 
and  being  in  correspondence  with  Eden,  the  Secretary 
of  the  Board  of  Trade,  he  wanted  an  expert  opinion 
from  the  Seer  of  Edinburgh.  Smith  replies  that  the 
Irish  demand  should  be  satisfied,  first,  because  it  is 
just;  second,  because  it  will  be  for  the  benefit  of 
English  consumers ;  and  lastly,  because  English  manu- 
facturers will  suffer  so  much  less  than  the  nation,  and 
the  national  revenue,  will  gain.  Dundas  had  seemed 
to  be  rather  afraid  that  with  cheaper  labour  and  lower 
taxes  the  Irish  manufacturers  might  be  able  to  under- 
sell their  British  competitors.  Smith  pointed  out  that 
they  had  neither  the  skill  nor  the  stock  [capital]  to 
enable  them  to  do  so;  "and  though  both  may  be 
acquired  in  time,  to  acquire  them  completely  will 
require  more  than  a  century."  Besides,  Ireland  had 
neither  coal  nor  wood;  "and  though  her  soil  and 
climate  are  perfectly  suited  for  raising  the  latter,  yet 


202  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

to   raise  it  to   the  same   degree  as  in  England  will 
require  more  than  a  century." 

Before  he  can  say  precisely  what  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment means  by  a  free  trade,  he  must  see  the  heads  of 
the  proposed  bill.  If  it  is  only  freedom  to  export, 
nothing  could  be  more  just  and  reasonable.  If  it  is 
freedom  to  import,  subject  only  to  their  own  customs' 
duties,  that  again  is  perfectly  reasonable,  though  it 
would  "interfere  a  little  with  some  of  our  paltry 
monopolies."  If  they  wish  to  be  allowed  to  trade 
freely  with  the  American  and  African  plantations, 
that  also  should  be  conceded.  It  would  interfere 
with  some  monopolies,  but  would  do  no  harm  to 
Great  Britain.  Lastly,  they  might  mean  to  demand 
a  free  trade  with  Great  Britain.  "Nothing,  in  my 
opinion,  would  be  more  highly  advantageous  to  both 
countries  than  this  mutual  freedom  of  trade.  It  would 
help  to  break  down  that  absurd  monopoly  which  we 
have  most  absurdly  established  against  ourselves  in 
favour  of  almost  all  the  different  classes  of  our  own 
manufacturers."  Dundas  had  hinted  that  the  two 
Parliaments  might  be  reconciled  by  a  proper  distri- 
bution of  loaves  and  fishes.  Smith  did  not  shrink  at  all 
from  promoting  a  good  policy  by  what  was  then  the 
ordinary  method  of  promoting  a  bad  policy  : — 

"  Whatever  the  Irish  mean  to  demand  in  this  way,  in  the 
present  situation  of  our  affairs  I  should  think  it  madness  not 
to  grant  it.  Whatever  they  may  demand,  our  manufacturers, 
unless  the  leading  and  principal  men  among  them  are  properly 
dealt  with  beforehand,  will  probably  oppose  it.  That  they 
may  be  so  dealt  with  I  know  from  experience,  and  that  it  may 
be  done  at  little  expense  and  with  no  great  trouble.  I  could 
even  point  to  some  persons  who,  I  think,  are  fit  and  likely  to 
deal  with  them  successfully  for  this  purpose.     I  shall  not  say 


x.]  FREE  TRADE  203 

more  upon  this  till  I  see  you,  which  I  shall  do  the  first  moment 
I  can  get  out  of  this  Town." 

A  week  later  Smith  repeated  his  argument  with 
some  additions  and  modifications  in  a  letter  of 
November  8th  to  Lord  Carlisle,  who  then  presided  over 
the  Board  of  Trade.  He  maintains  that  "  a  very  slender 
interest  of  our  own  manufacturers  is  the  foundation 
of  all  these  unjust  and  oppressive  restraints,"  and 
ridicules  "the  watchful  jealousy  of  the  monopolists, 
alarmed  lest  the  Irish,  who  have  never  been  able  to 
supply  completely  even  their  own  market  with  glass 
or  woollen  manufactures,  should  be  able  to  rival  them 
in  foreign  markets." 

When  he  passes  from  commercial  considerations  to 
the  larger  aspects  of  freedom  and  good  government, 
his  wisdom  is  no  less  manifest.  What  Ireland  most 
wants,  he  writes,  are  order,  police,  and  a  regular  admin- 
istration of  justice,  both  to  protect  and  to  restrain 
the  inferior  ranks  of  people :  "  articles  more  essential 
to  the  progress  of  industry  than  both  coal  and  wood 
put  together,  and  which  Ireland  must  continue  to 
want  as  long  as  it  continues  to  be  divided  between  two 
hostile  nations,  the  oppressors  and  the  oppressed, 
the  Protestants  and  the  Papists."  He  then  points 
out  that  what  the  monopolists  dread  (the  prosperity 
of  another  country)  is  not  an  evil  but  a  good : — 
"Should  the  industry  of  Ireland,  in  consequence  of 
freedom  and  good  government,  ever  equal  that  of 
England,  so  much  the  better  would  it  be  not  only 
for  the  whole  British  Empire,  but  for  the  particular 
province  of  England.  As  the  wealth  and  industry  of 
Lancashire  does  not  obstruct  but  promote  that  of 
Yorkshire,   so   the   wealth    and    industry   of    Ireland 


204  ADAM  SMITH  [chap.  x. 

would  not  obstruct  but  promote  that  of  England." 
For  exactly  the  same  reasons  he  wanted  free  trade 
with  France,  and  with  the  whole  world.  If  it  is  good 
for  one  man  to  trade  freely  with  another,  for  a  town 
with  a  town,  and  for  a  county  with  a  county,  how 
can  it  be  otherwise  than  good  for  countries  to  trade 
freely  together  1  An  economist  who  strikes  at  the  last 
proposition  should  hail  Smith's  humorous  project  of  a 
tariff  which  would  secure  Scotland  a  vintage  as  well  as 
a  harvest. 

Much  more  might  be  said  upon  a  subject  that  enters 
into  the  politics  of  every  State,  and  vitally  affects  the 
welfare  of  every  struggling  toiler  in  the  universe. 
But  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  will  be  fulfilled  if  it 
restores  to  Adam  Smith  his  identity  as  the  prota- 
gonist in  a  great  contest,  as  the  champion  of  the  right 
to  trade  with  all  the  world,  against  those  who  stand 
for  privileges,  monopolies,  and  tariffs.  According  to 
Bagehot,  Smith's  name  can  no  more  be  dissociated  from 
free  trade  than  Homer's  from  the  siege  of  Troy.  "  So 
long  as  the  doctrines  of  protection  exist — and  they 
seem  likely  to  do  so,  as  human  interests  are  what 
they  are,  and  human  nature  is  what  it  is — Adam  Smith 
will  always  be  quoted  as  the  great  authority  on  Anti- 
Protectionism,  as  the  man  who  first  told  the  world 
the  truth,  so  that  the  world  could  learn  and  believe  it." 


CHAPTER  XI 

LAST    YEARS 

(1776-1790) 

After  seeing  the  Wealth  of  Nations  through  the  press, 
Smith  lingered  a  few  weeks  in  London.  He  was 
anxious  to  persuade  Hume  to  come  up  and  consult  the 
London  physicians,  but  Hume  shrank  from  the  journey, 
and  implored  his  friend  to  return  to  Edinburgh.  So 
about  the  middle  of  April,  Smith  and  John  Home l  took 
the  coach  for  Edinburgh.  But  at  Morpeth,  where  the 
coach  stopped,  they  saw  Hume's  servant  at  the  door 
of  the  inn.  Hume  had  changed  his  mind,  and  was  on 
his  way  to  see  Sir  John  Pringle.  Home  returned  with 
Hume  to  London,  but  Smith,  hearing  that  his  aged 
mother  was  ill,  went  on  to  Kirkcaldy.  Before  parting, 
however,  the  two  friends  carefully  discussed  the  ques- 
tion of  what  should  be  done  with  Hume's  papers  in  the 
event  of  his  death.  From  a  desire  to  avoid  religious 
controversy  and  public  clamour,  Hume  had  kept  by 
him  unpublished  his  Dialogues  on  Natural  Religion, 
and  he  now  tried  to  persuade  his  friend  and  literary 
executor  to  edit  them  after  his  death. 

But  Smith  resolutely  declined  the  task.     Although 
he  had  himself  lectured  on  Natural  Religion,  he  had 

1  The  author  of  Douglas. 

205 


206  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

warily  avoided  the  subject  in  his  own  publications. 
Moreover,  he  was  now  hoping  to  be  appointed  to  an 
office  under  the  Crown,  and  such  a  publication  would 
certainly  be  prejudicial.  Hume  argued  that  these 
objections  were  groundless:  "Was  Mallet  anywise 
hurt  by  his  publication  of  Lord  Bolingbroke  1  He 
received  an  office  afterwards  from  the  present  king, 
and  Lord  Bute,  the  most  prudent  man  in  the  world, 
and  he  always  justified  himself  by  his  sacred  regard 
to  the  will  of  a  dead  friend."  And  he  reminded 
Smith  of  a  saying  of  Eochefoucauld,  that  "a  wind, 
though  it  extinguishes  a  candle,  blows  up  a  fire."  So 
he  wrote  from  London  at  the  beginning  of  May. 
However,  he  agreed  to  leave  the  question  of  publica- 
tion entirely  to  Smith's  discretion.  "By  the  little 
company  I  have  seen,"  he  added,  "I  find  the  town  very 
full  of  your  book,  which  meets  with  general  appro- 
bation." Soon  afterwards  Hume  changed  his  mind,  and 
made  Strahan  his  literary  executor,  with  instructions 
to  publish  the  Dialogues  within  two  and  a  half  years. 

In  July  the  two  friends  were  again  in  Edinburgh, 
conversing  together.  Smith  was  deeply  impressed  by 
the  philosophic  courage,  and  even  gaiety,  with  which 
the  great  sceptic  faced  the  approach  of  death.  In 
the  well-known  letter  to  Strahan,1  that  is  always 
printed  with  Hume's  autobiography,  he  mentions  among 
other  touching  incidents  that  a  certain  Colonel  Edmond- 
stone  paid  a  farewell  visit  to  Hume,  but  afterwards 
could  not  forbear  writing  a  last  letter  "applying  to 
him  as  to  a  dying  man  the  beautiful  French  verses  in 
which  the  Abbe  Chaulieu,  in  expectation  of  his  own 
death,  laments  his  approaching  separation  from  his 
1  Written  from  Kirkcaldy,  November  9,  1776. 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  207 

friend  the  Marquis  de  la  Fare."  "Mr.  Hume's  mag- 
nanimity and  firmness  were  such,"  continued  Smith, 
"that  his  most  affectionate  friends  knew  that  they 
hazarded  nothing  in  talking  or  writing  to  him  as  a 
dying  man,  and  that,  far  from  being  hurt  by  this 
frankness,  he  was  rather  pleased  and  flattered  with  it." 
At  the  end  of  the  first  week  of  August,  Hume  had 
now  become  so  very  weak  that  the  company  of  his 
most  intimate  friends  fatigued  him  : — 

"  At  his  own  desire,  therefore,  I  agreed  to  leave  Edinburgh, 
and  returned  to  my  mother's  house  here  at  Kirkcaldy,  upon 
condition  that  he  would  send  for  me  whenever  he  wished  to 
see  me ;  the  physician  who  saw  him  most  frequently,  Dr. 
Black,  undertaking  in  the  meantime  to  write  me  occasionally 
an  account  of  the  state  of  his  health." 

The  correspondence  which  followed  marks  the  close 
of  a  deep,  unbroken,  and  memorable  attachment.  On 
August  1 5th  Hume's  anxiety  for  the  Dialogues  revived  : 
"  On  revising  them  (which  I  have  not  done  these  five 
years)  I  find  that  nothing  can  be  more  cautiously  and 
more  artfully  written.  You  had  certainly  forgotten  them. 
Will  you  permit  me  to  leave  you  the  property  of  the 
copy,  in  case  they  should  not  be  published  in  five  years 
after  my  decease  ?  Be  so  good  as  write  me  an  answer 
soon."     On  the  22nd  Smith  replied  : — 

"  I  have  this  moment  received  yr.  letter  of  the  15th  inst. 
You  had,  in  order  to  save  me  the  sum  of  one  penny  sterling, 
sent  it  by  the  carrier  instead  of  the  PlJst,  and  (if  you  have 
not  mistaken  the  date)  it  has  lain  at  his  quarters  these  eight 
days,  and  was,  I  presume,  very  likely  to  lie  there  for  ever." 

Then,  after  reassuring  Hume  about  the  Dialogues,  he 
continued  : — 

"  If  you  will  give  me  leave  I  will  add  a  few  lines  to  yr. 


208  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

account  of  your  own  life,  giving  some  account  in  my  own 
name  of  your  behaviour  in  this  illness,  if,  contrary  to  my  own 
hopes,  it  should  prove  your  last.  Some  conversations  we  had 
lately  together,  particularly  that  concerning  your  want  of  an 
excuse  to  make  to  Charon,  the  excuse  you  at  last  thought  of, 
and  the  very  bad  reception  wh.  Charon  was  likely  to  give  it, 
would,  I  imagine,  make  no  disagreeable  part  of  the  history. 
You  have  in  a  declining  state  of  health,  under  an  exhausting 
disease,  for  more  than  two  years  together  now  looked  at  the 
approach  of  death  with  a  steady  cheerfulness  such  as  very  few 
men  have  been  able  to  maintain  for  a  few  hours,  tho'  otherwise 
in  the  most  perfect  Health.  I  shall  likewise,  if  you  give  me 
leave,  correct  the  sheets  of  the  new  edition  of  your  works,  and 
shall  take  care  that  it  shall  be  published  exactly  according  to 
your  last  corrections.  As  I  shall  be  at  London  this  winter, 
it  will  cost  me  very  little  trouble." 

But  "  the  cool  and  steady  Dr.  Black  "  still  gave  him 
some  hopes  of  his  friend's  recovery.  On  the  follow- 
ing day  Hume  dictated  a  brief  answer  to  this  letter, 
explaining  that  he  had  only  taken  an  extra  precaution 
in  case  anything  might  happen  to  Strahan.  "  You  are 
too  good,"  he  added,  "in  thinking  any  trifles  that  con- 
cern me  are  so  much  worthy  of  your  attention,  but  I 
give  you  entire  liberty  to  make  what  additions  you 
please  to  the  account  of  my  life." 

Two  days  afterwards  Hume  died,  and  was  buried  in 
Calton  Cemetery.  Smith  did  not  like  the  round  tower 
erected  under  a  provision  of  the  will  to  mark  the  grave 
— "  it  is  the  greatest  piece  of  vanity  I  ever  saw  in  my 
friend  Hume."  By  the  will  a  legacy  of  £200  and  copies 
of  all  Hume's  published  works  were  left  to  him ;  but 
he  stoutly  refused  to  accept  the  money,  as  he  had  ceased 
to  be  executor,  although  he  had  no  thought  of  relin- 
quishing his  promise  to  edit  Hume's  life  and  works. 
"I  have  added,"  he  wrote  to  Hume's  brother   (Kirk- 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  209 

caldy,  October  7th),  "at  the  bottom  of  my  will  the  note 
discharging  the  legacy  of  £200  which  your  brother 
was  so  kind  as  to  leave  me.  Upon  the  most  mature 
deliberation  I  am  fully  satisfied  that  in  justice  it  is  not 
due  to  me.  Tho'  it  should  be  due  to  me  therefore  in 
strict  law,  I  cannot  with  honour  accept  of  it." 

A  month  earlier  he  had  written  to  Strahan  from  Dal- 
keith, where  he  was  staying  with  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch, 
a  careful  explanation  of  Hume's  will  and  last  wishes. 
"  Both  from  his  will  and  from  his  conversation  I  under- 
stand that  there  are  only  two  [manuscripts]  which  he 
meant  should  be  published — an  account  of  his  life,  and 
Dialogues  concerning  Natural  Religion.  The  latter,  tho' 
finely  written,  I  could  have  wished  had  remained  in 
manuscript  to  be  communicated  only  to  a  few  friends. 
I  propose  to  add  to  his  Life  a  very  well  authenticated 
account  of  his  behaviour  during  his  last  illness." 

Smith's  addition  to  Hume's  autobiography  took 
the  form  of  a  letter  to  Strahan  giving  an  account 
of  Hume's  last  illness,  concluding  with  the  words : 
"  Upon  the  whole,  I  have  always  considered  him  both 
in  his  lifetime  and  since  his  death  as  approaching  as 
nearly  to  the  idea  of  a  perfectly  wise  and  virtuous 
man,  as  perhaps  the  nature  of  human  frailty  will 
permit."  This  warm-hearted  and  eloquent,  but  surely 
extravagant  eulogy  of  the  "virtuous  heathen,"  created 
precisely  the  kind  of  popular  clamour  that  Smith  had 
been  so  anxious  to  avoid.  Strahan  liked  the  addition 
exceedingly ;  but  as  this  and  the  autobiography 
together  were  too  short  to  make  even  a  tiny  volume, 
he  wrote  back,  good  publisher  that  he  was  : — 

"  I  have  been  advised  by  some  very  good  judges  to  annex 
some  of  his  letters  to  me  on  political  subjects.     What  think 

0 


210  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

you  of  this?  I  will  do  nothing  without  your  advice  and 
approbation,  nor  would  I  for  the  world  publish  any  letter 
of  his  but  such  as  in  your  opinion  would  do  him  honour. 
Mr.  Gibbon  thinks  such  as  I  have  shown  him  would  have 
that  tendency.  Now  if  you  approve  of  this  in  any  manner, 
you  may  perhaps  add  partly  to  the  collection  from  your  own 
cabinet  and  those  of  Mr.  John  Home,  Dr.  Robertson,  and 
others  of  your  mutual  friends  which  you  may  pick  up  before 
you  return  hither.  But  if  you  wholly  disapprove  of  this 
scheme,  say  nothing  of  it,  here  let  it  drop,  for  without  your 
concurrence  I  will  not  publish  a  single  word  of  it." 

A  decisive  reply  came  at  once  from  Kirkcaldy.  It 
gives  a  peremptory  judgment — quite  against  the  drift 
of  modern  opinion — upon  what  will  always  be  a  case 
for  the  casuist : — 

"  I  am  sensible  that  many  of  Mr.  Hume's  letters  would  do 
him  great  honour,  and  that  you  would  publish  none  but  such 
as  would.  But  what  in  this  case  ought  principally  to  be 
considered  is  the  will  of  the  Dead.  Mr.  Hume's  constant 
injunction  was  to  burn  all  his  Papers  except  the  Dialogues 
and  the  account  of  his  own  life.  This  injunction  was  even 
inserted  in  the  body  of  his  will.  I  know  he  always  disliked 
the  thought  of  his  letters  ever  being  published.  He  had  been 
in  long  and  intimate  correspondence  with  a  relation  of  his  own 
who  dyed  a  few  years  ago.  When  that  gentleman's  health 
began  to  decline  he  was  extremely  anxious  to  get  back  his 
letters,  least  the  heir  should  think  of  publishing  them.  They 
were  accordingly  returned,  and  burnt  as  soon  as  returned. 
If  a  collection  of  Mr.  Hume's  letters  besides  was  to  receive 
the  public  approbation,  as  yours  certainly  would,  the  Curls 
of  the  times  would  immediately  set  about  rummaging  the 
cabinets  of  all  those  who  had  ever  received  a  scrap  of  paper 
from  him.  Many  things  would  be  published  not  fit  to  see 
the  light,  to  the  great  mortification  of  all  those  who  wish  well 
to  his  memory.  Nothing  has  contributed  so  much  to  sink 
the  value  of  Swift's  works  as  the  undistinguished  publication 
of  his  letters  ;  and  be  assured  that  your  publication,  however 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  211 

select,  would  soon  be  followed  by  an  undistinguished  one. 
I  should  therefore  be  sorry  to  see  any  beginning  given  to  the 
publication  of  his  letters.  His  life  will  not  make  a  volume, 
but  it  will  make  a  small  pamphlet." 

The  nervous  objection  felt  by  Hume  and  Smith  to 
the  publication  of  correspondence  or  of  any  manuscript 
not  carefully  considered  by  the  writer,  and  intended  by 
him  for  publication,  may  be  overstrained ;  but  perhaps 
this  generation  errs  as  much  in  its  anxiety  to  penetrate 
the  privacy  of  the  dead  as  they  did  in  wishing  to 
destroy  everything  that  was  incomplete,  or  too  easy, 
intimate,  and  negligent — as  they  thought — for  the  eye 
of  a  critical  posterity. 

Fortune  now  played  our  provident  philosopher  one 
of  her  most  insolent  tricks.  When  the  dreaded 
Dialogues  appeared,  they  fell  perfectly  flat;  but  the 
letter  to  Strahan  excited,  as  Mr.  Rae  says,  "  a  long  rever- 
beration of  angry  criticism."  His  words,  few  and  simple, 
but  warm  with  the  glow  of  friendship,  "rang  like  a 
challenge  to  religion  itself."  Pamphlets  poured  forth, 
the  cleverest  of  which,  "A  Letter  to  Adam  Smith, 
LL.D.,  on  the  Life,  Death,  and  Philosophy  of  David 
Hume,  Esquire,  by  one  of  the  People  called  Christians," 
was  still  being  printed  and  circulated  for  edification 
by  the  Religious  Tract  Society  in  the  thirtieth  year  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  Its  anonymous  author,  Dr. 
George  Home,  President  of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford, 
proclaimed  that  no  unbeliever  could  be  virtuous  or 
charitable,  and  charged  Smith  as  well  as  Hume  with 
the  atrocious  wickedness  of  diffusing  atheism  through 
the  land.  "You  would  persuade  us,"  he  cried,  "by 
the  example  of  David  Hume,  Esq.,  that  atheism 
is   the   only  cordial  for  low   spirits   and  the   proper 


212  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

antidote  against  the  fear  of  death ;  but  surely  he  who 
can  reflect  with  complacency  on  a  friend  thus  employ- 
ing his  talents  in  this  life,  and  thus  amusing  himself 
with  Lucian,  whist,  and  Charon  at  his  death,  can  smile 
over  Babylon  in  ruins,  esteem  the  earthquakes  which 
destroyed  Lisbon  as  agreeable  occurrences,  and  con- 
gratulate the  hardened  Pharaoh  on  his  overthrow  in 
the  Eed  Sea." 

Smith  made  no  answer  to  this  attack,  for  which  the 
author  was  afterwards  rewarded  by  a  Bishopric.  After 
Christmas,  when  his  mother's  health  allowed  him  to 
leave  her,  he  travelled  to  London,  and  early  in  January 
1777  he  had  taken  lodgings  in  Suffolk  Street,  near 
the  British  Coffee  House,  and  was  busy  preparing  his 
second  edition  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  a  reprint,  with 
corrections  and  two  additional  pages.  In  March  he 
was  at  a  dinner  of  the  Literary  Club  with  Gibbon, 
Garrick,  Eeynolds,  Johnson,  Burke,  and  Fox.  Mr.  Eae 
thinks  he  remained  most  of  the  year  in  London,  and 
probably  he  had  some  intercourse  with  Lord  North 
and  other  members  of  the  Government.  At  any  rate 
Lord  North,  who  had  studied  Smith's  chapters  on 
taxation  to  more  purpose  than  his  chapters  on  expendi- 
ture and  policy,  borrowed  two  of  his  ideas  in  the 
Budget  of  1777 — for  he  laid  taxes  on  men-servants 
and  on  property  sold  by  auction.1  Smith  was  back 
in  Edinburgh  by  the  end  of  this  year,  and  there  heard 
from   Strahan   that  he  had  been  appointed  by  Lord 

1  In  the  Budget  of  1778  North  adopted  two  more  important 
recommendations :  the  inhabited  house  duty,  which  is  still  with 
us,  and  the  malt  tax,  which  was  commuted  for  the  beer  duty 
by  Mr.  Gladstone  in  1880.  The  house  tax  proved  very  pro- 
ductive, as  taxes  went  in  those  days,  its  yield  rising  from 
£26,000  in  1779  to  £108,000  in  1782. 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  213 

North  one  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  Customs  in 
Scotland.  In  the  middle  of  January  he  writes  from 
Kirkcaldy  to  Strahan,  requesting  him  to  send  two 
copies  of  the  second  edition  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations, 
"handsomely  bound  and  gilt,  one  to  Lord  North, 
the  other  to  Sir  Gray  Cooper,"  and  adds,  "I  believe 
that  I  have  been  very  highly  obliged  to  him  [Cooper] 
in  this  business."1  The  Commissionership  was  worth 
£600  a  year,  and  Smith  at  once  proposed  to  relin- 
quish his  pension;  but  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch  would 
not  hear  of  it. 

Early  in  1778  Smith  removed  to  Edinburgh.  He 
was  now  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  certain  income  of  £900 
a  year  apart  from  the  considerable  sums  which  he 
derived  from  the  sale  of  his  books.  He  took  Panmure 
House  in  the  Canongate,  not  far  from  the  deserted 
palace  of  Holyrood — a  fashionable  quarter  where  some 
of  the  Scottish  nobility,  forsaken  by  King  and  Court, 
still  kept  their  town  houses.  Panmure  House  is  now 
a  dismantled  store ;  and  it  needs  some  imagination  to 
realise  how  Windham,  accustomed  to  London  palaces, 
should  have  called  it  "magnificent,"  as  he  looked  from 
its  newly  painted  windows  and  plastered  walls  "over 
the  long  strip  of  terraced  garden  on  to  the  soft  green 
slopes  of  the  Calton." 2 

The  rent  was  probably  very  nearly  £20  a  year.  But 
Smith  was  one  of  the  richest  men  in  Edinburgh,  and 
felt,  no  doubt,  that  he  could  well  afford  to  take  one  of 
the  best  houses  in  the  city.  To  share  and  crown  his 
happiness  he  brought  his  mother,  his  cousin  Miss 
Douglas,  and  her  nephew,  a  schoolboy  David  Douglas 

1  Sir  Gray  Cooper  was  Secretary  to  the  Treasury. 

2  Rae's  Life  of  Adam  Smith,  p.  326. 


214  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

(afterwards  Lord  Strathendry),  whom  he  made  his  heir. 
From  Panmure  House  "Mr.  Commissioner  Smith" 
walked  every  day  to  his  official  duties  in  Exchange 
Square,  attired  in  a  light-coloured  coat,  white  silk 
stockings,  and  a  broad-brimmed  hat,  holding  a  cane  at 
his  shoulder  as  a  soldier  carries  a  musket.  He  used 
to  turn  his  head  gently  from  side  to  side  as  he  walked, 
and  swayed  his  body  "  vermicularly,"  as  if  at  every 
other  step  he  meant  to  alter  his  direction  or  even  to 
turn  back.1  His  lips  often  moved,  and  he  would  smile 
like  one  conversing  with  an  invisible  companion.  He 
was  not  always  unaware  of  his  surroundings,  and  was 
fond  of  relating  how  a  market  woman  in  the  High 
Street  took  him  for  a  well-to-do  lunatic.  "Hech, 
sirs ! "  she  cried,  "  to  let  the  like  of  him  be  about ! 
And  yet  he 's  weel  eneugh  put  on  ! " 

His  letters  show  that  he  was  very  regular  in  attend- 
ing to  his  duties  at  the  Customs,  which  indeed  were 
important  in  themselves,  and  not  unattractive  to  one 
who  took  so  deep  an  interest  in  the  art  of  revenue  and 
the  growth  of  wealth.  The  duties  of  the  Commis- 
sioners were  administrative  and  judicial.  Sometimes 
they  had  to  despatch  soldiers  to  guard  part  of  the 
coast  against  smugglers,  or  to  put  down  an  illegal  still. 
They  heard  merchants'  appeals  from  assessments ;  they 
appointed  and  controlled  the  local  officers,  and  every 
year  they  prepared  returns  of  customs'  revenue  and 
expenditure.  There  is  good  reason  to  think  that  he 
found  his  work  congenial,  though  Dugald  Stewart, 
who  always  grows  morbid  at  the  thought  of  any 
check  to  the  output  of  philosophic  literature,  laments 
that  these  duties,  "  though  they  required  little  exertion 

1  See  the  Life  of  Smith  by  William  Smellie,  a  contemporary. 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  215 

of  thought,  were  yet  sufficient  to  waste  his  spirits  and 
dissipate  his  attention,"  and  that  the  time  they  con- 
sumed was  not  employed  in  labours  more  profitable  to 
the  world  and  more  equal  to  his  mind.  During  the 
first  years  of  his  residence  in  Edinburgh  "  his  studies 
seemed  to  be  entirely  suspended,  and  his  passion  for 
letters  served  only  to  amuse  his  leisure  and  to  animate 
his  conversation."  This  young  mentor  often  caught 
our  misguided  veteran  wasting  precious  time  in  his 
library  with  Sophocles  or  Euripides,  and  would  be  told 
that  re-acquaintance  with  the  favourites  of  one's  youth 
is  the  most  grateful  and  soothing  diversion  of  old  age. 
Let  us  forgive,  and  more  than  forgive,  the  tired 
economist,  who  disapproved  that  care,  though  wise 
in  show, 

"  That  with  superfluous  burden  loads  the  day, 
And,  when  God  sends  a  cheerful  hour,  refrains." 

It  is  indeed  to  be  wished  that  the  notes  on  Juris- 
prudence could  have  been  worked  up  into  an  ample 
study  after  the  manner  of  Montesquieu's  Spirit  of  the 
Laws;  but  probably  all  that  would  have  been  gained 
by  retirement  would  have  been  the  publication  of 
his  lectures  on  belles  lettres ;  and  it  is  certain  that  some 
of  the  most  instructive  additions  to  the  Wealth  of 
Nations  could  never  have  been  written,  had  Smith 
declined  the  office  of  Commissioner. 

At  any  rate,  a  problematical  loss  to  the  world  was  a 
great  gain  to  Edinburgh.  Smith,  though  personally 
the  most  frugal,  was  also  the  most  hospitable,  genial, 
and  charitable  of  men.  Hume's  death,  indeed,  left  a 
gap  that  could  not  be  filled.  But  every  city  in 
Europe  might  still  envy  Edinburgh  her  Republic  of 


216  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

Letters.  Robertson  the  historian,  who  formed  with 
Hume  and  Gibbon  what  Gibbon  proudly  called  the 
Triumvirate,  and  Adam  Ferguson,  a  little  jealous  at 
this  time  of  his  greater  rival,  lived  outside  the  town. 
Black,  too,  who  had  taken  Hume's  place  as  Smith's 
dearest  living  friend,  had  what  was  in  those  days  a 
country  house,  now  the  Royal  Blind  Asylum  in 
Nicolson  Street.  Karnes,  Hailes,  and  Monboddo,  Sir 
John  Dalrymple  and  Dugald  Stewart,  and  many  other 
minor  celebrities,  lived  close  at  hand.  Smith  seems 
to  have  kept  something  like  open  house.  His  Sunday 
suppers  were  remembered  long  after  his  death,  and 
many  distinguished  visitors  to  Edinburgh  enjoyed  the 
hospitality  of  Panmure  House. 

He  loved  good  conversation.  In  Glasgow  and  in 
London  he  had  belonged  to  several  dining-clubs,  and 
he  now  helped  to  found  another.  Swediaur,  a  Parisian 
doctor,  wrote  from  Edinburgh  in  1784  to  Jeremy 
Bentham :  "we  have  a  club  here  which  consists  of 
nothing  but  philosophers."  They  met  every  Friday  at 
two  o'clock  in  a  Grassmarket  tavern,  and  the  French- 
man found  it  "  a  most  enlightened,  agreeable,  cheerful, 
and  social  company."  Smith,  Black,  and  Hutton,  the 
fathers  of  the  three  modern  sciences  of  political 
economy,  modern  chemistry,  and  modern  geology, 
were  the  illustrious  founders  of  this  society.  All 
three,  wrote  another  member,  Professor  John  Playfair, 
had  enlarged  views  and  wide  information,  "without 
any  of  the  stateliness  which  men  of  letters  think  it 
sometimes  necessary  to  affect ;  .  .  .  and  as  the  sincerity 
of  their  friendship  had  never  been  darkened  by  the 
least  shade  of  envy,  it  would  be  hard  to  find  an  example 
where  everything  favourable  to  good  society  was  more 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  217 

perfectly  united,  and  everything  adverse  more  entirely 
excluded."  Henry  Mackenzie,  who  wrote  the  Man  of 
Feeling,  and  Dugald  Stewart  were  also  members. 

The  club  was  called  the  Oyster  Club,  though 
Hutton  was  an  abstainer,  Black  a  vegetarian,  and 
Smith's  only  extravagant  taste  was  for  lump  sugar. 

"We  shall  never,"  wrote  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  some 
recollections  of  these  "old  Northern  Lights,"  which 
appeared  in  an  early  number  of  the  Quarterly  Review, 
"forget  one  particular  evening  when  he  [Smith]  put 
an  elderly  maiden  lady  who  presided  at  the  tea-table 
to  sore  confusion  by  neglecting  utterly  her  invitation 
to  be  seated,  and  walking  round  and  round  the  circle, 
stopping  ever  and  anon  to  steal  a  lump  from  the  sugar 
basin,  which  the  venerable  spinster  was  at  length  con- 
strained to  place  on  her  own  knee,  as  the  only  method 
of  securing  it  from  his  uneconomical  depredations. 
His  appearance  mumping  the  eternal  sugar  was  some- 
thing indescribable."  Sir  Walter  was  a  schoolfellow 
of  young  David  Douglas ;  and  the  incident  no  doubt 
took  place  in  Panmure  House,  where  Miss  Douglas 
would  naturally  "preside  at  the  tea-table. 

Scott  had  a  vivid  recollection  of  Black  and  Hutton. 
The  former  used  the  English  pronunciation,  and  spoke 
with  punctilious  accuracy  of  expression.  He  wore  the 
formal  full-dress  habit  then  imposed  on  members  of  the 
medical  faculty.  Dr.  Hutton's  dress  had  the  simplicity 
of  a  Quaker's,  and  he  used  a  broad  Scotch  accent  which 
often  heightened  his  humour.  Sir  Walter  told  an 
amusing  anecdote  which  may,  perhaps,  explain  why 
the  dining  society,  founded  by  the  three  philosophers, 
was  called  the  Oyster  Club.  It  so  chanced  that  Black 
and  Hutton  had  held  some  discourse  together  upon  the 


218  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

folly  of  abstaining  from  feeding  on  the  crustaceous 
creatures  of  the  land,  when  those  of  the  sea  were 
considered  as  delicacies.  Snails  were  known  to  be 
nutritious  and  wholesome,  even  "sanative"  in  some 
cases.  The  epicures  of  ancient  Rome  enumerated  the 
snails  of  Lucca  among  the  richest  and  rarest  delicacies, 
and  the  modern  Italians  still  held  them  in  esteem.  So 
a  gastronomic  experiment  was  resolved  on.  The  snails 
were  procured,  dieted  for  a  time,  then  stewed. 

"  A  huge  dish  of  snails  was  placed  before  them  ;  but  philo- 
sophers are  but  men  after  all ;  and  the  stomachs  of  both  doctors 
began  to  revolt  against  the  proposed  experiment.  Neverthe- 
less if  they  looked  with  disgust  on  the  snails,  they  retained 
their  awe  for  each  other;  so  that  each,  conceiving  the 
symptoms  of  internal  revolt  peculiar  to  himself,  began  with 
infinite  exertion  to  swallow,  in  very  small  quantities,  the  mess 
which  he  loathed.  Dr.  Black  at  length  'showed  the  white 
feather,'  but  in  a  very  delicate  manner,  as  if  to  sound  the 
opinion  of  his  messmate.  '  Doctor,'  he  said  in  his  precise  and 
quiet  style,  '  Doctor,  do  you  not  think  that  they  taste  a  little 

— a    very   little    green  ? '      '  D d    green,    d d    green 

indeed  ! — tak'  them  awa',  tak'  them  awa' ! '  vociferated  Dr. 
Hutton,  starting  up  from  table  and  giving  full  vent  to  his 
feelings." 

One  of  Smith's  younger  friends  was  John  Sinclair,  a 
Scotch  laird  of  much  ability  and  immense  industry, 
whose  History  of  the  Public  Revenue  is  still  a  standard 
work.  It  owed  much  to  the  Wealth  of  Nations;  for 
when  Smith  saw  how  competent  Sinclair  was,  he  helped 
him  in  every  possible  way.  In  1777  he  dissuaded  the 
young  man  from  printing  a  pamphlet  against  the 
Puritanical  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  saying,  "  Your 
work  is  very  ably  written,  but  I  advise  you  not  to 
publish  it;    for  rest  assured  that  the  Sabbath   as  a 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  219 

political  institution  is  of  inestimable  value  inde- 
pendently of  its  claim  to  divine  authority."  Late  in 
the  following  year,  when  Sinclair  brought  him  the 
news  of  Saratoga,  and  declared  that  the  nation  must 
be  ruined,  Smith  answered  coolly,  "Be  assured,  my 
young  friend,  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  ruin  in  a 
nation."  About  the  same  time  he  let  Sinclair  have 
the  use  (so  long  as  he  did  not  take  it  out  of  Edinburgh) 
of  his  own  much-prized  copy  of  the  Mimoires  concer- 
nant  les  Impositions,  a  contemporary  survey  of  European 
systems  of  taxation,  which  he  had  obtained  "by  the 
particular  favour  of  Mr.  Turgot,  the  late  Comptroller- 
General  of  the  Finances."  In  one  of  his  letters  to  Sinclair 
he  expressed  his  dislike  of  "  all  taxes  that  may  affect 
the  necessary  expenses  of  the  poor." 

"  They,  according  to  different  circumstances,  either  oppress 
the  people  immediately  subject  to  them,  or  are  repaid  with 
great  interest  by  the  rich,  i.e.  by  their  employers  in  the  ad- 
vanced wages  of  their  labour.  Taxes  on  the  luxuries  of  the 
poor,  upon  their  beer  and  other  spirituous  liquors,  for  ex- 
ample, as  long  as  they  are  so  moderate  as  not  to  give  much 
temptation  to  smuggling,  I  am  so  far  from  disapproving,  that 
I  look  upon  them  as  the  best  of  sumptuary  laws."  1 

Sinclair,  who  had  entered  Parliament  in  1780,  dis- 
cussed foreign  policy  with  Smith  in  the  autumn  of 
1782,  soon  after  the  surrender  at  Yorktown,  when  the 
fortunes  of  Great  Britain  had  sunk  to  their  lowest  ebb. 
The  American  colonies  were  lost ;  Ireland  was  almost 
in  revolt ;  Gibraltar  was  besieged  by  the  Spanish  and 
French  fleets ;  and  the  Northern  powers  were  arrayed 
in  an  unfriendly  armed  neutrality.  Sinclair  had 
drafted  a  tract  suggesting  that  we  should  seek  to  draw 
1  See  Sinclair's  Life  of  Sir  John  Sinclair,  vol.  i.  p.  39. 


220  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

the  Northern  powers  into  an  alliance  against  the  House 
of  Bourbon  by  offering  them  a  share  in  our  colonial 
monopoly.  Again  Smith  advised  his  young  friend  not 
to  go  into  print.  The  proposal,  he  thought,  would 
not  find  favour  with  the  neutrals,  and  there  seemed  to 
be  a  moral  inconsistency  in  the  argument.  "If  it  be 
just  to  emancipate  the  continent  of  America  from  the 
dominion  of  every  European  power,  how  can  it  be  just 
to  subject  the  islands  to  such  dominion;  and  if  the 
monopoly  of  the  trade  of  the  continent  be  contrary  to 
the  rights  of  mankind,  how  can  that  of  the  islands  be 
agreeable  to  those  rights  ? " 

In  the  following  year  peace  was  concluded  with 
America  and  France ;  and  the  Prime  Minister  boasted 
to  Morellet  that  all  the  treaties  of  that  year  were 
inspired  by  "the  great  principle  of  free  trade." 
-  The  necessity  for  resuming  commercial  intercourse 
with  the  United  States  raised  in  an  acute  form  the 
problem  of  the  colonial  monopoly.  Should  the  States 
be  allowed  to  trade  with  Canada  on  the  same  terms  as 
with  Great  Britain?  William  Eden  (afterwards  Lord 
Auckland)  was  afraid  of  abandoning  the  differential 
principle,  and  in  his  perplexity  wrote  to  Smith,  who 
replied  that  if  the  Americans  really  meant  to  subject 
the  goods  of  all  nations  to  the  same  import  duties, 
they  would  "set  an  example  of  good  sense  which  all 
other  nations  ought  to  imitate."  He  had  little  anxiety 
— and  his  confidence  was  completely  justified  by  the 
event — about  the  loss  of  the  American  monopoly.  "  By 
an  equality  of  treatment  of  all  nations,  we  might  soon 
open  a  commerce  with  the  neighbouring  nations  of 
Europe  infinitely  more  advantageous  than  that  of  so 
distant  a  country  as  America."    As  he  hopes  to  see 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  221 

Eden  in  a  few  weeks'  time,  he  will  not  write  a  tedious 
dissertation,  but  contents  himself  with  saying  that 
"every  extraordinary,  either  encouragement  or  dis- 
couragement, that  is  given  to  the  trade  of  any  country, 
more  than  to  that  of  another,  may,  I  think,  be  demon- 
strated to  be  in  every  case  a  complete  piece  of  dupery, 
by  which  the  interest  of  the  State  and  the  nation  is 
constantly  sacrificed  to  that  of  some  particular  class  of 
traders."  He  ends  with  warm  praise  of  the  East  India 
Bill,  and  of  the  decisive  judgment  and  resolution  with 
which  it  had  been  introduced  and  triumphantly  carried 
through  the  House  of  Commons  by  Fox.1 

It  is  worth  while  here  to  note  Smith's  steady  devo- 
tion to  Fox  and  Burke,  who  represented  the  Rocking- 
ham branch  of  the  Whig  party.  He  was  faithful 
found  among  innumerable  false,  for  he  approved  alike  of 
Fox's  resignation  in  1782  rather  than  serve  under 
Shelburne,  and  of  his  fatal  coalition  with  Lord  North 
in  the  following  year.2  It  may  seem  strange  to  those 
who  think  of  Adam  Smith  only  as  the  founder  of 
free  trade  that  he  should  have  been  a  Foxite,  and 
especially  that  he  should  have  remained  one  in  the 
last   decade   of  his   life,  when   commercial   questions 

1  Edinburgh,  loth  December  1783.  The  letter  is  printed  in 
the  Journals  and  Correspondence  of  Lord  Auckland,  vol.  i.  p.  64. 

2  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot  wrote  from  Edinburgh,  July  25,  1782,  to 
his  wife: — "I  have  found  one  just  man  in  Gomorrah,  Adam 
Smith,  author  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations.  He  was  the  Duke  of 
Buccleuch's  tutor,  is  a  wise  and  deep  philosopher,  and  although 
made  Commissioner  of  the  Customs  here  by  the  Duke  and 
Lord  Advocate,  is  what  I  call  an  honest  fellow.  He  wrote  a 
most  kind  as  well  as  elegant  letter  to  Burke  on  his  resignation, 
as  I  believe  I  told  you  before,  and  on  my  mentioning  it  to  him 
he  told  me  he  was  the  only  man  here  who  spoke  out  for  the 
Rockinghams. " — Life  of  Lord  Minto,  vol.  i.  p.  84. 


222  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

were  uppermost,  and  when  Shelburne  first,  and  then 
Pitt,  set  themselves  to  translate  the  Wealth  of  Nations 
into  laws  and  treaties.  But,  as  we  have  tried  to  show, 
he  never  allowed  economical  considerations  to  weigh 
in  the  scale  with  political  liberty ;  and  the  clue  to  his 
distrust  of  Shelburne  and  Pitt  is  his  dislike  of  the 
King  as  a  corrupter  of  politics,  and  of  the  Court  as  a 
corrupter  of  morals.  Shelburne  and  Pitt  exalting  the 
King  and  the  executive  would  have  depressed  the 
House  of  Commons.  Rockingham,  Fox,  and  Burke 
sought  manfully,  and  not  unsuccessfully,  so  to  main- 
tain and  glorify  constitutional  usages  as  to  check  and 
limit  the  power  of  the  King.  This  single  consideration 
was  enough  to  determine  the  allegiance  of  a  truly 
republican  heart. 

Burke,  moreover,  was  in  every  way  a  sympathetic 
figure.  His  measure  of  economical  reform  had  docked 
the  resources  of  patronage,  and  sensibly  relieved  the 
burdens  of  the  taxpayer.  And  his  views  about  com- 
mercial liberty  coincided  with  Smith's  own.  About 
this  time  a  happy  chance  brought  the  two  friends 
together.  In  the  autumn  of  1783  Burke  was  elected 
Lord  Rector  of  the  University  of  Glasgow,  and  early 
in  the  following  April,  during  the  general  election 
which  overwhelmed  the  Whigs,  Burke,  having  saved 
his  own  seat  at  Malton,  paid  a  visit  to  Scotland.  He 
stayed  a  few  days  in  Edinburgh,  and  then,  accom- 
panied by  Adam  Smith,  Lord  Maitland,1  and  others, 
went  on  to  Glasgow  to  be  installed  in  his  new  office. 
On  the  day  of  their  arrival  (Friday,  April  9)  they 
supped   with    that   stalwart  Whig,  John   Millar,    the 

1  Afterwards  Lord  Lauderdale,  a  finished  economist,  who 
passed  some  ingenious  criticisms  on  the  Wealth  of  Nations. 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  223 

Professor  of  Law.  On  Sunday,  Smith  and  Maitland 
took  Burke  to  see  Loch  Lomond,  and  made  their  way 
back  by  Carron  to  Edinburgh,  which  they  reached  on 
the  following  Wednesday.  Next  day  Burke,  with 
a  company  of  Smith's  Edinburgh  friends,  dined  at 
Panmure  House.  On  Friday  the  great  orator  re- 
turned to  England  extremely  pleased  by  his  reception 
in  Scotland,  and  leaving  behind  him  many  friends 
and  admirers.  One  of  these  has  preserved  some  par- 
ticulars of  the  visit.  "Smith,  Dugald,  and  I,"  wrote 
Dalzel,  "had  more  of  his  company  than  anybody  in 
this  country,  and  we  got  a  vast  deal  of  political  anec- 
dote from  him  and  fine  pictures  of  political  characters 
both  dead  and  living."  Burke  advised  Lord  Maitland, 
if  he  had  ambition  and  wanted  office,  to  abandon  the 
Whig  party.  "Shake  us  off:  give  us  up."  Smith 
said  cheerfully  that  "in  two  years  things  would  come 
about  again."  "Why,"  cried  Burke,  "I  have  already 
been  in  a  minority  nineteen  years,  and  your  two  years, 
Mr.  Smith,  will  make  me  twenty-one  years,  and  it  will 
surely  be  high  time  for  me  then  to  be  in  my  majority  ! " 

Before  the  end  of  May  a  dark  cloud  came  over 
Smith's  life,  for  his  mother  passed  away  in  her  ninetieth 
year.  Four  years  later  her  death  was  followed  by  that 
of  his  cousin,  Miss  Douglas.  Their  loss  was  irreparable. 
"  They  had  been  the  objects  of  his  affection  for  more 
than  sixty  years,  and  in  their  society  he  had  enjoyed 
from  his  infancy  all  that  he  ever  knew  of  the  endear- 
ments of  a  family." l 

Late  in  the  autumn  of  1784  Faujas  de  Saint-Fond, 
the  geologist,  visited  Edinburgh  after  some  adven- 
turous discoveries  in  the  Hebrides.  During  his  fort- 
1  See  Dugald  Stewart's  Memoir,  section  v. 


224  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

night's  stay  "  that  venerable  philosopher  Adam  Smith  " 
was  one  of  those  whom  he  visited  most  frequently. 
"He  received  me  on  every  occasion  in  the  kindest 
manner,  and  studied  to  procure  for  me  every  kind  of 
information  and  amusement  that  the  town  afforded." 
Smith's  library,  he  says,  bore  evidence  of  his  tour  in 
France  and  his  stay  in  Paris.  "  All  our  best  French 
authors  occupied  prominent  places  on  his  shelves.  He 
was  very  fond  of  our  language." 

On  one  occasion  when  Saint-Fond  was  at  tea  in 
Panmure  House,  Smith  spoke  of  Rousseau  "with  a 
kind  of  religious  respect,"  and  compared  him  with 
Voltaire.  "The  latter,"  he  said,  "sought  to  correct 
the  vices  and  follies  of  mankind  by  laughing  at  them, 
and  sometimes  by  treating  them  with  severity ;  but 
Rousseau  catches  his  reader  in  the  net  of  reason  by  the 
attraction  of  sentiment  and  the  force  of  conviction. 
His  Social  Contract  may  well  avenge  him  orie  day  for 
all  his  persecutions."  Smith's  features  became  very 
animated  when  he  spoke  of  Voltaire,  "  whom  he  had 
known  and  greatly  loved." 

One  day  Adam  Smith  asked  his  visitor  if  he 
liked  music,  and  said,  on  hearing  that  he  did  :  "  I 
am  very  glad  of  it;  I  shall  put  you  to  a  proof 
which  will  be  very  interesting  for  me,  for  I  shall 
take  you  to  hear  a  sort  of  music  of  which  it  is 
impossible  you  can  have  formed  any  idea,  and  I  shall 
be  delighted  to  find  how  it  strikes  you."  The  annual 
bagpipe  competition  was  to  take  place  next  day,  and 
Smith  came  to  Saint-Fond's  lodgings  next  morning  at 
nine  o'clock,  and  conducted  him  to  a  spacious  concert- 
room  full  of  people;  but  neither  musicians,  nor 
orchestra,  nor  instruments  were  to  be  seen.     A  large 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  225 

space  was  reserved  in  the  middle  of  the  room  and 
occupied  by  gentlemen  only,  who,  said  his  guide,  were 
Highlanders  come  to  judge  of  the  performances.  The 
prize  was  for  the  best  executed  piece  of  Highland 
music,  and  the  same  air  was  to  be  played  successively 
by  all  the  competitors.  After  some  delay  a  door  opened 
and  a  kilted  Highlander  advanced  into  the  hall : — 

"  He  walked  up  and  down  the  vacant  space  with  rapid 
steps  and  a  martial  air,  blowing  his  bagpipes.  The  tune 
was  a  kind  of  sonata  divided  into  three  parts.  Smith 
requested  me  to  pay  my  whole  attention  to  the  music,  and  to 
explain  to  him  afterwards  the  impression  it  made  upon  me. 
But  I  confess  that  at  first  I  could  not  distinguish  either  air 
or  design  in  the  music.  I  was  only  struck  with  a  piper 
marching  backward  and  forward  with  great  rapidity,  and 
still  presenting  the  same  warlike  countenance.  He  made 
incredible  efforts  with  his  body  and  his  fingers  to  bring  into 
play  the  different  reeds  of  his  instrument,  which  emitted 
sounds  that  were  to  me  almost  insupportable.  He  received 
much  applause  from  all  parts  of  the  hall." 

Then  came  a  second  piper,  who  seemed  to  excel  the 
first,  judging  from  the  clapping  and  cheers  Having 
heard  eight  in  succession,  the  Professor  began  to  dis- 
cover that  the  first  part  represented  a  warlike  march, 
the  second  a  battle,  and  the  last  part  the  wailing  over 
the  slain — which  drew  tears  from  the  eyes  of  many 
fair  ladies  in  the  audience.  The  stance  ended  with  a 
"  lively  and  animated  dance,  accompanied  by  suitable 
airs,  though  the  union  of  so  many  bagpipes  produced  a 
most  hideous  noise."  The  Frenchman's  verdict  was 
highly  unfavourable.  He  concluded  that  the  pleasure 
given  by  the  music  was  due  to  historical  associations. 
Though  he  admired  the  impartiality  of  the  audience 
and  judges,  who  showed  no  special  favour  even  to  a 


226  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

laird's  son  unless  he  played  well,  he  could  not  himself 
admire  the  artists.  "To  me  they  were  all  equally 
disagreeable.  The  music  and  the  instrument  alike 
reminded  me  of  a  bear's  dance." l 

Burke  revisited  Glasgow  in  August  1785.  Windham 
was  with  him.  They  stopped  on  their  way  in  Edin- 
burgh and  dined  with  Smith — Robertson,  Henry 
Erskine,  and  Dr.  Cullen  being  among  the  guests.  On 
September  13th,  when  they  returned  to  Edinburgh, 
Windham  makes  this  entry  in  his  diary :  "  After 
dinner  walked  to  Adam  Smith's.  Felt  strongly  the 
impression  of  a  family  completely  Scotch.  House 
magnificent  and  place  fine."  They  stayed  one  more 
day  in  Edinburgh,  and  dined  at  Panmure  House. 
Burke  found  time  to  visit  John  Logan,  the  author  of 
the  lovely  Ode  to  the  Cuckoo.  Dr.  Carlyle  says  that 
Smith  was  "  a  great  patron  "  of  this  persecuted  poet  ; 
and  when  Logan  was  hounded  out  of  the  ministry, 
and  went  to  London  to  seek  a  living  by  his  pen,  he 
took  a  letter  of  introduction  from  Smith  to  Andrew 
Strahan  the  publisher,  who  was  about  to  issue  a 
fourth  edition  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations.2 

In  the  following  year  (1786)  Smith  was  suffering 
much  from  ill-health,  but  his  mind  and  pen  were 
busy.  T.  Christie,  Nichols's  Edinburgh  correspondent, 
informed  his  friend   in  August  that  Dr.  Smith  was 

1  Mr.  Rae,  the  only  one  of  Smith's  biographers,  I  think, 
who  has  noticed  Saint-Fond's  visit,  dates  it  wrongly  (in 
1782),  and  says  the  account  was  published  in  1783.  The 
journey  took  place  in  1784,  and  the  account  was  published  in 
1797.     An  English  translation  appeared  two  years  later. 

3  This  appeared  in  1786  with  a  prefatory  note  expressing  the 
author's  grateful  obligations  to  Mr.  Henry  Hope  of  Amsterdam, 
for  his  information  concerning  the  great  Dutch  Bank. 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  227 

writing  "the  history  of  Moral  Philosophy."  This  may 
only  mean  that  he  was  engaged  in  preparing  the 
enlarged  (6th  edition)  of  the  Moral  Sentiments ;  for  in  a 
letter  to  the  Duke  of  Eochefoucauld  that  recently 
came  to  light,  dated  November  1,  1785,  he  speaks  of 
an  edition  of  the  Theory  "which  I  hope  to  execute 
before  the  end  of  the  ensuing  winter."  But  it  may 
refer  to  one  of  two  much  larger  and  more  ambitious 
schemes  which  he  goes  on  to  mention  in  the  same 
letter :  "  I  have  likewise  two  other  great  works  upon 
the  anvil ;  the  one  is  a  sort  of  philosophical  history  of 
all  the  different  branches  of  literature,  of  philosophy, 
poetry,  and  eloquence  ;  the  other  is  a  sort  of  theory 
and  history  of  law  and  government.  The  materials  of 
both  are  in  a  great  measure  collected,  and  some  part 
of  both  is  put  into  tolerable  good  order.  But  the 
indolence  of  old  age,  though  I  struggle  violently  against 
it,  I  feel  coming  fast  upon  me,  and  whether  I  shall 
ever  be  able  to  finish  either  is  extremely  uncertain."  At 
the  same  time  he  was  in  correspondence  with  William 
Eden,  whom  he  was  helping  to  refute  Dr.  Price's  alarmist 
theories  about  the  decrease  of  the  population. 

In  the  spring  of  1787  he  went  to  London,  partly  to 
consult  John  Hunter,  Sir  William's  younger  brother, 
partly  perhaps  from  curiosity  to  see  the  boy  Premier, 
who  was  so  rapidly  and  skilfully  carrying  out  his  fiscal 
policy.  Pitt  had  just  carried  Smith's  favourite  project 
of  a  commercial  treaty  with  France,  and  was  now 
engaged  in  the  far  more  laborious  task  of  simplifying 
the  chaos  of  customs  and  excise  rates  in  a  gigantic 
Consolidation  Bill.  The  economist  had  many  con- 
ferences with  the  statesman.  It  is  said  that  he  was 
much  with  the  ministry;  and  that  the  clerks  of  the 


228  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

public  offices  had  orders  to  furnish  him  with  all  papers, 
and  to  employ  if  necessary  additional  hands  to  copy 
for  him.  One  incident  has  been  preserved  that  is 
worth  recording.  At  a  dinner  given  by  Dundas, 
Smith  came  in  late,  and  the  company  rose  to  receive 
him.  He  begged  them  to  be  seated.  "No,"  said 
Pitt,  "  we  will  stand  till  you  are  seated,  for  we  are  all 
your  scholars."  On  another  occasion,  finding  himself 
next  to  Addington,  he  exclaimed:  "What  an  extra- 
ordinary man  Pitt  is ;  he  understands  my  ideas  better 
than  I  do  myself ! "  He  stayed  several  months  in 
London,  and  though  his  disorders  did  not  admit  of 
cure,  the  physicians  operated  with  success,  and  pro- 
nounced in  July  that  he  "might  do  some  time 
longer." 

At  the  end  of  this  month  Thomas  Eaikes  had  a 
talk  with  him  about  the  Sunday-school  movement, 
and  was  much  delighted  by  the  old  man's  enthusi- 
astic approval :  "  No  plan  has  promised  to  effect 
a  change  of  manners  with  equal  ease  and  simplicity 
since  the  days  of  the  Apostles."  But  towards  another 
philanthropic  scheme,  for  planting  fishing-villages  along 
the  Highland  coast,  he  displayed,  wrote  Wilberforce, 
"a  certain  characteristic  coolness,"  observing  that  "he 
looked  for  no  other  consequence  from  the  scheme  than 
the  entire  loss  of  every  shilling  that  should  be  expended 
on  it,  granting,  however,  with  uncommon  candour,  that 
the  public  would  be  no  great  sufferer,  because  he 
believed  the  individuals  meant  to  put  their  hands  only 
in  their  own  pockets."  Mr.  Eae,  who  has  traced  the 
scheme  down  to  1893  when  it  was  finally  wound  up, 
shows  that  the  shareholders  lost  half  their  original 
capital  of  £35,000,  and  wasted  besides  £100,000  of 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  229 

taxpayers'  money,  which  a  foolish  Government  impro- 
vidently  provided  for  one  of  their  ill-conceived  projects. 
After  all,  philanthropy  cannot  afford  to  neglect  the 
cool  precepts  of  political  economy,  nor  is  moral  fervour 
the  worse  for  a  pinch  of  common  sense.  In  November, 
having  returned  to  Edinburgh,  he  heard  with  "heart- 
felt joy"  the  news  that  he  had  been  elected  Rector 
of  his  old  University,  and  he  was  installed  in  the 
following  month.  "No  preferment,"  he  wrote  in  a 
graceful  letter  of  thanks,  "could  have  given  me  so 
much  real  satisfaction." 

"  No  man  can  own  greater  obligations  to  a  Society  than  I 
do  to  the  University  of  Glasgow.  They  educated  me,  they 
sent  me  to  Oxford,  soon  after  my  return  to  Scotland  they 
elected  me  one  of  their  own  members,  and  afterwards  preferred 
me  to  another  office  to  which  the  abilities  and  virtues  of  the 
never-to-be-forgotten  Dr.  Hutcheson  had  given  a  superior 
degree  of  illustration.  The  period  of  thirteen  years  which  I 
spent  as  a  member  of  that  Society,  I  remember  as  by  far  the 
most  useful  and  therefore  as  by  far  the  happiest  and  most 
honourable  period  of  my  life  ;  and  now,  after  three-and-twenty 
years'  absence,  to  be  remembered  in  so  very  agreeable  a  manner 
by  my  old  friends  and  protectors  gives  me  a  heartfelt  joy 
which  I  cannot  easily  express  to  you." 

A  year  later,  the  death  of  his  cousin,  Miss  Jane 
Douglas,  left  him,  says  Stewart,  "alone  and  helpless," 
and  though  he  bore  his  loss  bravely,  and  regained 
apparently  his  former  cheerfulness,  yet  his  health 
and  strength  gradually  declined,  until  in  the  summer 
of  1790  he  passed  away.  A  few  particulars  have 
been  preserved  of  these  last  two  years  by  those  who 
enjoyed  his  friendship  and  hospitality;  but  of  his 
correspondence  there  is  only  a  short  letter  thanking 
Gibbon,  with  whom  he  had  long  been  on  very  affec- 


230  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

tionate  terms,  for  the  last  three  volumes  of  the  Decline 
and  Fall.  "  I  cannot,"  he  writes,  "  express  to  you  the 
pleasure  it  gives  me  to  find  that  by  the  universal  consent 
of  every  man  of  taste  and  learning  whom  I  either  know 
or  correspond  with,  it  sets  you  at  the  very  head  of  the 
whole  literary  tribe  at  present  existing  in  Europe."1 
In  July  1789,  Samuel  Rogers,  then  a  young  man 
of  twenty-three,  came  to  Edinburgh  with  an  intro- 
duction to  Adam  Smith  from  Price.  On  the  morning 
after  the  storming  of  the  Bastille  he  called  on  the 
economist,  and  found  him  breakfasting,  with  a  dish  of 
strawberries  before  him.  Smith  said  they  were  a 
northern  fruit,  at  their  best  in  Orkney  and  Sweden. 
The  conversation  passed  to  Edinburgh,  its  high  houses, 
dirt,  and  overcrowding.  Smith  spoke  slightingly  of 
the  old  town,  and  said  he  would  like  to  remove  to 
George  Square.  Then  he  talked  of  the  scenery,  soil, 
and  climate  of  Scotland,  and  of  the  corn  trade,  which 
led  him  to  denounce  Pitt's  Government  for  refusing  to 
supply  France  with  a  quantity  of  corn  so  small  that  it 
would  not  have  fed  Edinburgh  for  one  day. 

He  invited  Rogers  to  dine  with  him  next  day  at 
the  Oyster  Club;  but  a  tedious  laird  (brother  of 
the  Thibetan  traveller)  monopolised  the  conversation. 
"That  Bogle,"  said  Smith  afterwards,  apologetically, 
"I  was  sorry  he  talked  so  much.  He  spoiled  our 
evening."  Next  Sunday  Smith  took  an  airing  in  his 
sedan  chair,  while  his  young  friend  went  to  hear  Robert- 
son and  Blair  preach.  At  nine  o'clock,  Blair  having 
concluded,  Rogers  supped  at  Panmure  House,  and  found 
the  Oyster  Club  minus  Bogle  and  plus  a  gentleman 

1  In  his  first  will  Gibbon  left  a  legacy  of  £100  to  Adam 
Smith. 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  231 

from  Gottingen.  The  conversation  was  personal,  and 
perhaps  the  only  item  now  worth  recalling  is  Smith's 
reason  for  identifying  Junius  with  "Single  Speech 
Hamilton."  Hamilton  once  told  the  Duke  of  Rich- 
mond at  Goodwood — the  story  came  to  Smith  from 
Gibbon — of  "a  devilish  keen  letter"  from  Junius  in 
that  day's  Public  Advertiser.  But  when  the  Duke  got 
the  paper  he  found  not  the  letter,  but  an  apology  for 
its  non-appearance ;  after  this  Hamilton  was  suspected 
of  the  authorship,  and  no  more  Junius  was  published. 
The  inference  Smith  drew  was  that  so  long  as  suspicion 
pointed  to  the  wrong  man  the  letters  continued  to 
appear,  and  only  stopped  when  the  true  author  was 
named.  Next  day  Rogers  again  dined  with  Smith, 
and  Henry  Mackenzie  told  them  stories  of  second-sight. 
Hutton  came  in  to  tea,  and  then  they  went  on  to  a 
meeting  of  the  Royal  Society  to  hear  a  paper  by  Dr. 
James  Anderson  on  "  Debtors  and  the  Revision  of  the 
Laws  that  respect  them."  Rogers  says  it  was  por- 
tentously long  and  dull.  "Mr.  Commissioner  Smith 
fell  asleep,  and  Mackenzie  touched  my  elbow  and 
smiled."  Altogether  Rogers  gives  us  a  very  pleasing 
picture  of  a  serene  and  bright  old  age.  "He  is  a  very 
friendly,  agreeable  man,  and  I  should  have  dined  and 
supped  with  him  every  day  if  I  had  accepted  all  his 
invitations."  He  did  not  notice  any  trace  of  absent- 
mindedness,  but  thought  that,  compared  with  Robert- 
son, Smith  was  a  man  of  the  world. 

In  the  same  summer  William  Adam,  a  nephew  of 
the  architect,  conversed  with  Smith  upon  Bentham's 
letters  on  usury.  The  economist  is  reported  to  have 
said  that  "  the  Defence  of  Usury  was  the  work  of  a  very 
superior  man,  and  that  though  he  had  given  him  some 


232  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

hard  knocks,  it  was  done  in  so  handsome  a  way  that 
he  could  not  complain."1  It  is  quite  possible  that 
had  Smith  lived  to  see  another  edition  of  the  Wealth 
of  Nations  through  the  press,  he  would  have  responded 
to  Bentham's  invitation  by  admitting  the  futility 
of  fixing  interest  by  law.  But  at  this  time  he  was 
still  busy  with  the  sixth  edition  of  the  Moral  Senti- 
ments, which  at  last  appeared  early  in  the  following 
year.  In  the  preface  he  referred  to  the  promise  he 
had  made  in  1759  of  a  treatise  on  Jurisprudence. 
That  promise  had  been  partially  fulfilled  in  the 
Wealth  of  Nations;  but  what  remained,  the  theory 
of  Jurisprudence,  he  had  hitherto  failed  to  execute. 
"  Though  my  very  advanced  age  leaves  me,"  he  acknow- 
ledged, "very  little  expectation  of  ever  being  able  to 
execute  this  great  work  to  my  own  satisfaction,  yet,  as 
I  have  not  altogether  abandoned  the  design,  and  as  I 
wish  still  to  continue  under  the  obligation  of  doing 
what  I  can,  I  have  allowed  the  paragraph  to  remain  as 
it  was  published  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  when  I 

1  In  his  Defence  of  Usury,  "Letter  xm.  to  Dr.  Smith," 
Bentham  had  written:  " Instead  therefore  of  pretending  to 
owe  you  nothing,  I  shall  begin  with  acknowledging  that,  as  far 
as  your  trade  coincides  with  mine,  I  should  come  much  nearer 
the  truth  were  I  to  say  I  owed  you  everything."  Mr.  Rae 
(Life  of  Adam  Smith,  p.  424)  quotes  a  letter  from  George 
Wilson  to  Bentham,  in  the  Bentham  mss.,  British  Museum. 
I  may  add  to  this  the  following  note  which  I  find  in  Bentham's 
Rationale  of  Reward  (1825),  p.  332,  in  chapter  xvi.  of  Book  iv., 
on  Rates  of  Interest.  "Adam  Smith,  after  having  read  the 
letter  upon  Projects,  which  was  addressed  to  him,  and  printed 
at  the  end  of  the  first  edition  of  the  Defence  of  Usury,  declared 
to  a  gentleman,  the  common  friend  of  the  two  authors,  that 
he  had  been  deceived.  With  the  tidings  of  his  death  Mr. 
Bentham  received  a  copy  of  his  works,  which  had  been  sent 
to  him  as  a  token  of  esteem." 


xi.]  LAST  YEARS  233 

entertained  no  doubt  of  being  able  to  execute  every- 
thing which  it  announced." 

These  words  were  probably  written  late  in  the  year 
1789.  In  February  1790  he  told  Lord  Buchan,  "You 
will  never  see  your  old  friend  any  more.  I  find  that 
the  machine  is  breaking  down."  From  this  time  he 
rapidly  wasted  away,  and  in  June  his  friends  knew,  as 
well  as  he  did,  that  there  was  no  hope  of  recovery. 
His  intellect  remained  perfectly  clear,  and  he  bore  his 
sufferings  with  the  utmost  fortitude  and  resignation. 

But  he  could  not  be  easy  about  his  papers.  In  1773, 
when  he  consigned  their  care  to  Hume,  he  had  instructed 
him  to  destroy  without  examination  all  his  loose  manu- 
script, together  with  about  eighteen  thin  paper  folio 
books  containing  his  lectures.  When  he  Avent  to 
London  in  1787  he  had  given  similar  instructions  to 
Black  and  Hutton.  Now  that  he  had  become  very  weak, 
and  felt  that  his  days  were  numbered,  he  spoke  again 
to  them  on  the  same  subject.  They  entreated  him  to 
make  his  mind  easy,  as  he  might  depend  upon  their 
fulfilling  his  desire.  He  was  satisfied  for  a  time.  But 
some  days  afterwards — this  is  Hutton's  account — find- 
ing his  anxiety  not  entirely  removed,  he  begged  one  of 
them  to  destroy  the  volumes  immediately.  This  accord- 
ingly was  done ;  and  his  mind  was  so  much  relieved 
that  he  was  able  to  receive  his  friends  in  the  evening 
with  his  usual  cheerfulness.  They  had  been  used  to 
sup  with  him  every  Sunday,  and  that  evening  there 
was  a  pretty  numerous  company  of  them.  The  old  man 
not  finding  himself  able  to  sit  up  with  them  as  usual, 
retired  to  bed  before  supper;  and  as  he  went  away 
took  leave  of  his  friends  by  saying,  "  I  believe  we  must 
adjourn  this  meeting  to  some  other  place."    He  died 


234  ADAM  SMITH  [chap. 

a  very  few  days  afterwards,  on  July  the  17th,  1790, 
and  was  buried  in  the  Canongate  Churchyard,  in  an 
obscure  spot  which  must  have  been  overlooked  by  some 
of  the  windows  of  Panmure  House. 

In  his  will  he  had  made  his  cousin,  David  Douglas 
(the  youngest  son  of  Colonel  Douglas  of  Strathendry), 
his  heir,  with  instructions  to  dispose  of  his  manuscripts 
in  accordance  with  the  advice  of  Black  and  Hutton. 

A  small  but  choice  library  of  four  or  five  thousand 
volumes,  and  a  simple  table,  to  which  his  friends  were 
always  welcome  without  the  formality  of  an  invitation, 
were,  says  Dugald  Stewart,  "the  only  expenses  that 
could  be  considered  his  own."  His  acts  of  private 
generosity,  though  sedulously  concealed,  were  on  a 
scale  "  much  beyond  what  might  have  been  expected 
from  his  fortune,"  and  those  who  knew  only  of  his 
frugality  were  surprised  to  find  how  small,  in  com- 
parison with  the  income  he  had  long  enjoyed,  was  the 
property  he  left  behind  him. 

His  friends  were  indignant  that  the  death  of  so 
great  a  thinker  made  but  little  stir.  They  might  have 
been  consoled  had  they  been  able  to  look  forward 
twenty  years,  and  read  a  letter  which  a  German 
student,  Alexander  von  der  Marwitz,  "wrote  to  a  friend 
on  reading  the  Wealth  of  Nations.  It  was  on  the  eve 
of  Jena,  and  the  form  of  Napoleon  stood  out  a  gigantic 
menace  to  all  that  the  young  patriot  held  dear.  Yet 
he  did  not  hesitate  to  compare  the  victorious  author 
with  the  conqueror  of  Europe.  "  Next  to  Napoleon  he 
is  now  the  mightiest  monarch  in  Europe." 

In  the  emancipation  of  thought  and  dispersion  of 
knowledge  which  mark  the  century  that  divides  the 
English  from  the  French  Revolution,  Adam  Smith 


XI.]  LAST  YEARS  235 

takes  his  place  in  the  order  of  time  after  Locke, 
Montesquieu,  Newton,  and  Voltaire,  with  Hume, 
Rousseau,  Diderot,  Turgot,  and  Burke.  With  all  of 
them  he  agreed  in  abhorring  religious  intolerance; 
with  each  of  them  he  had  some  special  affinity.  Like 
the  first  and  the  last,  he  had  a  truly  English  reverence 
for  law  and  order.  A  Newtonian  in  his  patient  and 
tranquil  research  for  the  hidden  secrets  of  Nature,  he 
had  Voltaire's  love  of  Justice,  while  he  resembled 
Rousseau,  the  only  democrat  of  the  French  school,  in 
a  new  sentiment  for  popular  government,  and  in  what 
may  be  called  either  the  Social  or  Republican  instinct. 
He  vied  with  Diderot  in  an  universal  curiosity  and  an 
encyclopaedic  grasp  of  all  the  sciences,  but  surpassed 
him  in  originality  and  creative  power.  He  combined 
in  an  extraordinary  degree  the  faculties  of  observation, 
meditation,  and  abstraction.  His  achievements  are 
not  accidents.  If  the  architect's  plans  are  compared 
with  history,  they  will  be  found  to  have  been  executed 
in  large  part  by  the  builders  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. Of  the  great  Frenchmen  who  synchronised 
with  him  and  moved  along  parallel  lines  of  thought,  it 
cannot  be  said  that  any  one,  or  that  all  together, 
destroyed  the  Church  or  the  government,  or  even  the 
social  system  of  France.  It  may  even  be  questioned 
whether  they  swayed  the  fortunes  of  France  with  an 
influence  so  potent  as  Smith's  sceptre  has  wielded  over 
the  destinies  of  Europe.  The  criticisms  of  Voltaire 
had  mighty  consequences,  no  doubt,  but  those  con- 
sequences were  not  deliberately  planned,  or  even 
descried.  Hume's  scepticism  went  far  deeper  than 
Voltaire's,  tore  up  by  the  roots  whole  systems  of 
debased  philosophy,  and  roused  Kant  from  his  dog- 
matic slumbers.     But  Hume  and  Voltaire  had  little  to 


236  ADAM  SMITH  [chap,  xi 

sow  on  the  land  they  ploughed  and  harrowed.  In  all 
their  anxiety  to  humble  and  ridicule  religion,  they 
would  retain  the  Church  as  a  useful  instrument  of  the 
State.  In  all  their  appeals  to  public  opinion,  they 
never  thought  of  resting  government  on  a  broad  basis 
of  popular  right.  Their  view  of  society  was  conven- 
tional ;  they  were  rather  satirists  than  reformers.  It 
has  been  a  commonplace  of  criticism  to  compare  Adam 
Smith  with  Locke.  He  is  supposed  to  have  done  for 
a  particular  branch  of  politics  what  Locke  did  for  the 
whole  science.  But  Locke's  main  achievement,  after 
all,  was  to  find  philosophic  sanction  for  a  revolution 
accomplished  by  others,  and  to  establish  in  the  minds  of 
the  Whig  aristocracy  an  unlimited  respect  for  a  limited 
constitution.  Smith  was  the  single-handed  contriver 
and  sole  author  of  a  revolution  in  thought  which 
has  modified  the  governing  policy  and  prodigiously 
increased  the  welfare  of  the  whole  civilised  world. 

Of  his  contemporaries,  the  nearest  perhaps  in  spirit 
are  Turgot  and  the  younger  Burke,  the  Burke  of  the 
American  Revolution  and  of  Free  Trade  and  Economical 
Reform.  But  Burke  and  even  Turgot  were  in  a  certain 
sense  men  of  the  past.  Though  their  radiance  can 
never  fade,  their  influence  wanes.  .  But  Smith  has 
issued  from  the  seclusion  of  a  professorship  of  morals, 
from  the  drudgery  of  a  commissionership  of  customs, 
to  sit  in  the  council-chamber  of  princes.  His  word  has 
rung  through  the  study  to  the  platform.  It  has  been 
proclaimed  by  the  agitator,  conned  by  the  statesman, 
and  printed  in  a  thousand  statutes. 


INDEX 


Alembert,  132,  139. 
American  colonies,  163,  176-9. 
Aristotle,  6,  24-6,  37,  53,  74, 194. 
Armaments,  172-4. 
Astronomy,  History  of,  16-18. 

B 

Bacon,  5,74  n.,  118-19. 

Bagehot  (quoted),  204. 

Balliol  College,  9-12. 

Banks  (in  Scotland),  101. 

Beauclerk,  160-1. 

Bee,  The,  21. 

Bentham,  Jeremy,  12, 184,  216  ;  his 

Defence  of  Usury,  231-2. 
Black,  Joseph,  83,  96-7,  99,  208, 

231,  233. 
Bordeaux,  123,  141. 
Boswell,  James,  19,  161, 164. 
Brougham,  Lord,  14. 
Buccleuch,    Duke  of,   111-14,  131, 

135, 150,  153,  157, 163,  213. 
Buchan,  Lord,  21,  99. 
Buckle,  Henry  Thomas,  63,  64. 
Burke,  Edmund,  20,  30,  47,  49,  67, 

75,  112,  160-2,  171,  174,  221-3, 

226,  235-6. 
Butler,  Bishop,  12,  51,  54. 


Calas,  Jean,  the  case  of,  124-5. 


Cannan,  Edwin,  71,  78-9,  90  n., 
169  ;  the  Lectures,  182. 

Carlyle,  Dr.  Alexander,  101,  104, 
105,  151,  226. 

Clubs— the  Poker,  107-9  ;  the  Liter- 
ary, 160,  161,  212,  216;  the 
Oyster,  216-18,  230. 

Cobden,  Kichard,  78,  175,  184, 
189-91. 

Cochrane,  Andrew,  101-2. 

Colbert,  Abbe,  121-3. 

Colliers,  76-7. 

Colonies,  145-9 ;  175-80. 

Condorcet,  133. 

Cullen,  Dr.,  26-7,  157,  226. 

Customs,  88  sqq.,  196  sqq.,  213-15. 

D 

Dalkeith  House,  150-1. 
Dalrymple,  Sir  John,   21,  95,   99, 

101, 104-5,  216. 
Degrees,  medical,  157-60. 
Descartes,  17,  55. 
Douglas,  David,  213,  234. 

Jane,  213,  223,  229. 

John,  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  9, 

160. 
Drysdale,  John,  3. 
Dundas,  Henry,  201,  228. 
Dunlop,  Alexander,  4. 

E 

Eden,  William,  199  201-20,  227 
237 


238 


ADAM  SMITH 


Edinburgh,  4,  78, 100, 103, 105  sqq., 

153,  206,  213  sqq. 
Encyclopaedia,  the,  118-20. 
England,  wealth  of,  139-42. 
Enville,  Duchess  of,  128, 131. 
Epictetus,  55,  56. 
Excise,  88-91,  191  n. 
Exports,  theory  of,  86  sqq. ,  190  sqq. 


Ferguson,  Adam,  128,  216. 
Ferney,  127-8. 

Foulis,  Robert,  printer,  21, 95,  97-9. 
Fox,    Charles    James,    174,    212, 

221-2. 
France,  86-7,  118  sqq.,  188,  235. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  108,  161-2. 
Free  Trade,  88,  142,  176,  188  sqq.  ; 

(chapter  x.),  220. 

G 

Garrick,  David,  130,  160,  212. 

Geneva,  126-8. 

Gibbon,  12,  13,  131,  157,  160,  164, 

212,  216,  229-31. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  165,  193. 
Glasgow,  4-9, 11,  23,  27,  78,  95  sqq., 

100-3,  222. 
University    of,   3-9,    94   sqq., 

229. 
Glassford,  John,  101. 
Grotius,  5,  71,  73,  92. 

H 

Hamilton  of  Bangour,  21. 
Helvetius,  132. 
Hobbes,  Thomas,  36,  51,  71. 
Holland,  90,  139, 172,  192. 
Home,  Henry  (see  Kames). 

John,  103,  105. 

Hume,  David,  6,  11,  17,  20,  22,  26, 
30,  36,  38,  43,  46  sqq.,  51,  60  sqq., 


73,  95,  96,  103,  106,  110-11,  113, 
129,  130,  136-8,  150  sqq.,  163-4, 
181,  194,  205-11,  233,  235. 

Hunter,  Sir  William,  157. 

John,  227. 

Hutcheson,  Francis,  4,  5,  6,  7,  11, 
30,  81,  36-8,  51,  57  n.,  62,  64, 
73,  97,  181,  229. 

Hutton,  Dr.,  216,  217,  233. 


Imitative  Arts,  16,  17,  19-20,  33, 

67. 
Imports,    theory  of,   86  sqq.,   192 

sqq.,  220. 
Ireland,  200-3. 


Jardine,  George,  30-31. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  19,  109-10,  165. 
Johnstone,  William  (see  Pulteney). 
Jurisprudence,  69-72,  78. 
Justice,  68  sqq. 


Kames,  Lord,  18,  19,  77,  103. 

Kant,  40,  58. 

Kirkcaldy,  1-3,  16,  76,  150-6,  205 

sqq. 
Kraus,  Christian  Jakob,  185. 


Labour,  division  of,  81,  194-5. 

Languedoc,  124-6. 

Law,  international,  71,  92-3. 

List,  Friedrich,  185-6,  189,  196. 

Locke,  John,  5,  25,  73,  235-6. 

Logan,  John,  226. 

Logic,  chair  of,  23,  30-3. 

Logic  and  Metaphysics,  History  of, 

18,  23-8,  31-3. 
London,  78,  156  sqq.,  227-8. 
Lowe,  Robert,  187. 


INDEX 


239 


M 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  50,  132. 
Malebranche,  25. 
Malesherbes,  184. 
Manchester  School,  189-91. 
Mandeville,  36-7,  53-4,  62. 
Mathematics,  7,  8. 
Maxims  of  Rochefoucauld,  54. 
Mercantile  system,  85-8,  197-8. 
Metaphysics,  26,  32-3 ;  see  Logic. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  165,  186-7, 196. 
Millar,  Andrew  (the  publisher),  46- 

8,  138, 144. 
John,  31,  33,  37,  68,  74,  99, 

222. 
Milton,  21,  36,  67, 184. 
Mollien,  Count,  143, 184-5. 
Monopoly,  159,  220. 
Montesquieu,  68,  73,  76,  215,  235. 
Morals,  Chair  of,  26  sqq.,  116-17. 
Moral  Sentiments,  Theory  of,  31, 

87-9,  46  sqq.,  2-32. 
Morellet,  132,  142,  220. 

N 

Navigation  Act,  4,  190-1. 
Necker,  131-2. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  8, 17,  36,  235. 
North,  Lord,  199,  200,  212,  213. 


Oswald,  James,  of  Dunnikier,  3, 18, 

22, 104. 
Oxford,  9. 
University  of,  11-15. 


Panmure  House,  213-14. 
Paris,  129  sqq.,  136-9. 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  193. 
Physics,  History  of  Ancient,  18. 
Pitt,  the  younger,  184,  188,  200, 
222,  227. 


Plato,  24-5,  37,  194. 
Police,  lectures  on,  68-72,  78. 
Pope,  13,  19,  56. 
Population,  76. 
Price,  Dr.  Richard,  161,  230. 
Protection  (see  Free  Trade). 
Pulteney,    Sir   William,    19,   104, 
154-5. 

Q 

Quesnai,  68,  71,  134-5,  142,  169. 

R 

Rae,  John  (quoted),  14,  28,  94,  101, 
106,  111,  114, 129, 211, 212, 226  n., 
228. 

Raikes,  Thomas,  228. 

Ramsay,  Allan,  105,  110. 

John,  of  Ochtertyre,  38,  44,  96. 

Religion,  183. 

Review,  Edinburgh,  109. 

Revenue  of  France,  141-2. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  160. 

Riccoboni,  Madame,  130. 

Richelieu,  Duke  of,  123,  127. 

Rochefoucauld,  129,  131, 133. 

Rockingham  Ministry,  146-7. 

Rogers,  Dr.  Charles  (quoted),  155. 

Samuel,  9, 127,  133,  230-1. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  65,  136-8,  150, 
224,  235. 

Ruskin,  183. 

S 

Saint-Fond,  Faujas  de,  127,  223-6. 
Schmoller,  Professor,  180. 
Schools  (public)  in  England,  12. 
Scotland,  9-10,  139-41. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter  (quoted),  217. 
Shaftesbury,  31,  36,  51. 
Shelburne,  Lord,  144, 148, 184, 188. 
Simson,  Robert,  4,  8,  96. 
Smith,  Adam  (the  elder),  2. 
Margaret,  2,  8. 


240 


ADAM  SMITH 


Snell  Exhibition,  9,  10,  15. 

Society,  the  Select,  105-7. 

Spectator,  Impartial,  56-60, 182. 

Spain,  86,  87,  145, 175. 

Stamp  Act,  146,  147. 

Stewart,  Dugald  (quoted),  2,  5, 13, 

14,   21,   68,   102,  105,  131,  132, 

139,  151,  214,  234. 

Matthew,  7,  8. 

Strahan,   William,    61,    144,    164, 

206  s??.,  226. 
Strathendry,  2. 
Sympathy,  doctrine  of,  57  sqq. 

T 
Taille,  142. 
Tax,  Land,   89,   142;  the  French, 

142. 
Taxation,     88     sqq.,     170-2,     176 

sqq. 
Theology,  Natural,  7,  37. 
Tocqueville,  125. 
Tooke,  Home,  124. 
Toulouse,  124-5,  144. 
Townshend,  Charles,  48-9, 104, 111- 

15, 135, 147-8. 
Treaties,        Commercial       (with 

France),  200,  220,  227. 


Turgot,  68,  71,  125, 126, 129,  132-4, 
142,  184,  219,  235-6. 


Union,  Act  of,  4,  36. 
Uztariz  (quoted),  90. 


Vingtieme,  142. 

Voltaire,  20,  44,  48,  120,  125,  127, 
128,  139,  224,  235. 

W 

Wages,  140. 

Wakefield,  E.  G.,  165-6. 

Walpole,  Sir  Eobert,  91. 

War,  172-4. 

Watt,  James,  83,  96-7. 

Wealth  of  Nations,  2,  12,  15,  22, 

32,  33,  63,  69,  81  sqq.,  139, 144, 

156,   158,   161-2;  (chapter   ix.), 

163  sqq.,  213. 
Wedderburn,   Alexander,    19,    47, 

109. 
Wilberforce,  William,  228-9. 
Windham,  William,  226. 
Wordsworth,  20,  21. 


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TIMES. — "  A  very  good  book,  full  of  well-chosen  facts  and  of  discreet  sympathy 
with  a  character  that  needs  a  good  deal  of  understanding. " 

PILOT. — "Mr.  Benson  displays  not  only  a  delicate  sympathy,  but  a  penetration 
and  a  sanity  of  judgment  that  enable  him  to  put  before  us  not  merely  a  plausible, 
but  a  convincing  portrait  of  a  man  who  twenty  years  after  his  death,  in  spite  of  changing 
fashions,  exercises,  as  in  his  own  day,  a  strange  and  potent  spell  over  the  imagination. ' 

MARIA   EDGEWORTH 

By  the  Hon.  Emily  Lawless. 

GUARDIAN.—"  Miss  Lawless  is  to  be  congratulated  upon  having  produced  what 
is  very  nearly  the  ideal  life  of  Maria  Edgeworth.  Within  little  more  than  two  hundred 
pages  she  has  included  all  necessary  facts,  and  has  achieved  a  living  presentment  of  a 
most  estimable  and  lovable  character." 

STANDARD. — "  Miss  Lawless  has  drawn  a  most  acceptable  portrait  of  a  delight- 
ful woman." 

GLOBE. — "A  memoir  of  great  interest." 

HOBBES 

By  Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  K.C.B. 

TIMES. — "  One  of  the  most  remarkable  additions  to  the  '  Men  of  Letters.'  .  .  . 
The  admirable  judgment  and  remarkable  knowledge  of  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  have  rarely 
been  seen  to  more  advantage  than  in  these  pages." 

GLOBE.—"  Valuable  little  work." 

PALL  MALL  GAZETTE. — "One  of  the  happiest  examples  of  Sir  LesHe's 
marvellous  success  in  making  biography  unfailing  in  its  interest." 


English  flfcen  of  betters. 

Edited  by  JOHN  MORLEY. 

RE-ISSUE  OF  THE  ORIGINAL  SERIES. 

Library  Edition.     Uniform  with  the  New  Series. 

Crown  Zvo.     Gilt  tops.     Flat  backs.     2s.  net  per  vol. 


ADDISON. 

By  W.  J.  Courthope. 
BACON. 

By  Dean  Church. 
BENTLEY. 

By  Sir  Richard  Jebb. 
BUNYAN. 

By  J.  A.  Froudr. 
BURKE. 

By  John  Morley. 
BURNS. 

By  Principal  Shairp. 
BYRON. 

By  Professor  Nichol. 
CARLYLE. 

By  Professor  Nichol. 
CHAUCER. 

By  Dr.  A.  W.  Ward. 
COLERIDGE. 

By  H.  D.  Traill. 
COWPER. 

By  Goldwin  Smith. 
DEFOE. 

By  W.  Minto. 
DE  QUINCEY. 

By  Professor  Masson. 
DICKENS. 

By  Dr.  A.  W.  Ward. 
DRYDEN. 

By  Professor  Saintsbury. 
FIELDING. 

By  Austin  Dobson. 
GIBBON. 

By  J.  C.  Morison. 
GOLDSMITH. 

By  W.  Black. 
GRAY. 

By  Edmund  Gosse. 
HAWTHORNE. 

By  Henry  James. 


HUME. 

By  Professor  Huxley,  F.R.S. 
JOHNSON. 

By  Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  K.C.B. 

KEATS. 

By  Sidney  Colvin. 

LAMB,  CHARLES. 

By  Canon  Ainger. 

LANDOR. 

By  Sidney  Colvin. 
LOCKE. 

By  Thomas  Fowler. 
MACAULAY. 

By  J.  C.  Morison. 
MILTON. 

By  Mark  Pattison. 
POPE. 

By  Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  K.C.B. 
SCOTT. 

By  R.  H.  Hutton. 
SHELLEY. 

By  J.  A.  Symonds. 
SHERIDAN. 

By  Mrs.  Oliphant. 
SIDNEY. 

By  J.  A.  Symonds. 
SOUTHEY. 

By  Professor  Dowden. 
SPENSER. 

By  Dean  Church. 
STERNE. 

By  H.  D.  Traill, 
SWIFT. 

By  Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  K.C.B. 
THACKERAY. 

By  Anthony  Trollope. 
WORDSWORTH. 

By  F.  W.  H.  Myers. 


MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd.,  LONDON- 


CL.  IO.0.O4. 


v?  otL^rf 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  675  961     7 


